Which line presents olfactory imagery about scent of a rose?

• A. What is poetry? Not a rose, but a scent of a rose.
• B. He was shaggy, thick fellow his coat was greasy about the lapels and pockets, and his hand splayed over the cane's crook with a futile sort of clinging.
• C. Strong melodious songs crackling splinters of glass and dried putty.
• D. The prince of darkness played his trombone like a madman: its brazen roaring were like the laughter of the damned.

Answer: (A)

Olfactory imagery is at work here—the writer uses scent to create a sensory image. The line that says “Not a rose, but a scent of a rose” explicitly invokes smell, letting you imagine the fragrance and feel of a rose in the scene. That focus on what something smells like is what makes it olfactory imagery.

The other lines lean on other senses: one describes appearance and touch, another evokes sound and visual detail, and the last combines loud sound with mood. None of them centers on a smell the way the line about a scent of a rose does.