In an ekphrastic poem, a poet explores a work of visual art, such as a drawing, sculpture, or painting. Robert Hayden’s 1994 poem “Monet’s Waterlilies,” for example, meditates on Claude Monet’s 1899 painting Water Lilies; Saad Ali’s 2020 poem “This Town,” _____ takes a painting as its subject: Ivan Aivazovsky's 1859 work Lunar Night on the Black Sea.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
Explanation
Context: An ekphrastic poem explores a work of visual art, illustrated by Hayden's "Monet's Waterlilies" meditating on a Monet painting. The blank introduces Ali's "This Town," which takes Aivazovsky's Lunar Night on the Black Sea as its subject.
Answer: C) likewise,
Why? Ali's poem does what Hayden's does, building on a painting, so it is a second parallel example of the genre just defined. "Likewise" marks that similarity.
Traps:
- A) "nevertheless," implies Ali's poem cuts against the pattern, but it follows the pattern exactly.
- B) "conversely," sets up an opposite case, and both poems respond to paintings in the same way.
- D) "hence," makes Ali's choice of subject a consequence of Hayden's poem, a causal link the text never draws.