Item 1 Read the following poem carefully before you choose your answers. This poem, set in the rural South, was first published during the Harlem Renaissance. November Cotton Flower Boll-weevil’s* coming, and the winter’s cold, Made cotton-stalks look rusty, seasons old, And cotton, scarce as any southern snow, Was vanishing; the branch, so pinched and slow, (5) Failed in its function as the autumn rake; Drouth fighting soil had caused the soil to take All water from the streams; dead birds were found In wells a hundred feet below the ground — Such was the season when the flower bloomed. (10) Old folks were startled, and it soon assumed Significance. Superstition saw Something it had never seen before: Brown eyes that loved without a trace of fear, Beauty so sudden for that time of year. “November Cotton Flower,” from CANE by Jean Toomer. Copyright 1923 by Boni & Liveright, renewed 1951 by Jean Toomer. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation. 1. Which description best characterizes the poem? a. A meditation on a disappointing outcome