Poetry Trivia Questions
In case you missed them, here are the past five Columbia Granger's World of Poetry trivia questions of the day.
September 16
Question:
In the Western tradition, who is considered to have written the first prose poem?
Answer
Louis-Jacques-Napoléon Bertrand, who went by the pen name Aloysius Bertrand, is generally considered the author of the first prose poem. However, Charles Baudelaire is often seen as the first one to write in the new form purposefully.
September 15
Question:
Of which poet did Allen Tate write, in 1924, "That boy's a wonder -- has more sheer genius than any of us; watch him: his work from now on will have what none of us can achieve -- power."
Answer
September 14
Question:
Though T.S. Eliot dedicated The Waste Land to Ezra Pound "il miglior fabbro" (the better maker), who was the original "miglior fabbro"?
Answer
Dante Alighieri used the phrase in Purgatorio to refer to troubadour Arnaut Daniel. Pound introduced Arnaut Daniel and other troubadour poets to the Modernists.
September 13
Question:
For whom is a humorous Japanese poetic form resembling haiku named?
Answer
The form senryu is named after Senry? Karai and follows the 5-7-5 pattern of haiku. In contrast to haiku, which are generally serious and oriented toward nature, senryu are humorous and focus on human foibles. There are additional differences between the haiku and senryu forms so subtle that they sometimes do not survive translation.
September 12
Question:
What Japanese poet first wrote haiku?
Answer
Prior to Masaoka Shiki, the poetic form established by Matsuo Bashowas known as hokku. Shiki is attributed with modernizing and refining the form, and coining the term "haiku."
