serious and strict man who could see the errors in my poems. Also I realized the seriousness of my devotion. I gave up geography to study poetry which a good many friends said offered no future. I ignored them because I liked working with words using them to reconstruct the past，which has always been a source of poetry for me.

　　 When I first studied poetry，I was single－minded. I woke to poetry and went to bed with poetry. I memorized poems read English poets because I was told they would help shape my poems and read classical Chinese poetry because I was told that it would add clarity to my work. But I was most taken by the Spanish and Latin American poets particularly Pablo Neruda. My favorites of his were the odes-long short－lined poems celebrating common things like tomatoes socks and scissors. I felt joyful when I read these odes and when I began to write my own poems I tried to remain faithful to the common things of my childhood-dogs alleys(小巷) my baseball mitt(手套) and the fruit of the valley especially the orange. I wanted to give these things life，to write so well that my poems would express their beauty.

　　 I also admired our own country's poetry. I saw that our poets often wrote about places where they grew up or places that impressed them deeply. James Wright wrote about Ohio and West Virginia Philip Levine about Detroit，Gary Snyder about the Sierra Nevadas and about Japan where for years he studied Zen Buddhism(禅宗佛教). I decided to write about the San Joaquin Valley where my hometown Fresno is located. Some of my poems are absolute observations and images of nature - the orange yards the Kings River the Sequoias(红杉). I fell in love with the valley both its ugliness and its beauty and quietly wrote poems about it to share with others.

　　1．What does the passage mainly talk about?

　　 A．The author's experiences with poetry.

　　 B．The author's method of writing.

　　 C．The author's appreciation of poetry.

　　 D．The author's interest in studying poetry.

　　解析：主旨大意题。通读全文可知，本文主要讲述了作者写诗的经历。

　　答案：A

　　2．From the first paragraph，we can learn that ________.

　　 A．"Frankenstein's Daughter" was a flowery poetry

　　 B．the author was able to memorize most poems he read

　　 C．the author began to get in contact with poetry of different styles

　　 D．the author was curious to read more of rhyme－and－meter poetry

　　解析：细节理解题。根据第一段倒数第二句话中的that library book contained direct and sometimes shocking poetry about ...可知，选C项。

　　答案：C

　　3．Which of the following would the author most probably write in his poem?

　　 A．Moving love stories in history.

　　 B．Observations of classical poems.

　　 C．True feelings of human friendship.

　　 D．Appreciation of the wild valley.

解析：推理判断题。根据最后一段尤其是最后一句话中的I fell in love with the