Question

this is for the woman with one black wing perched over her eyes: lovely frida, erect among parrots, in the stern petticoats of the peasant, who painted herself a present— wildflowers entwining the plaster corset her spine resides in, that flaming pillar— this priestess in the romance of mirrors. each night she lay down in pain and rose to the celluloid butterflies of her beloved dead, lenin and marx and stalin arrayed at the footstead. and rose to her easel, the hundred dogs panting like children along the graveled walks of the garden, diego’s love a skull in the circular window of the thumbprint searing her immutable brow. —“sonnet in primary colors” what is the most likely reason rita dove chose to call this poem a sonnet? the work has no rhyme scheme. the subject is romantic in nature. the poem contains 14 lines. each stanza has seven lines.

Explanation:

To determine why Rita Dove called this poem a sonnet, we analyze the options:

• Option 1: Sonnets typically have a rhyme scheme (e.g., Shakespearean or Petrarchan), so "no rhyme scheme" is incorrect.
• Option 2: The subject (Frida Kahlo's life/pain) isn't inherently romantic in the typical sonnet sense, so this is wrong.
• Option 3: A key defining feature of a sonnet is having 14 lines. Counting the lines of the poem, we see it has 14 lines, matching this.
• Option 4: The poem's stanzas don't each have seven lines (e.g., the first stanza has 8 lines, others vary), so this is incorrect.

Answer:

C. The poem contains 14 lines.