Poetry Trivia Questions

In case you missed them, here are the past five Columbia Granger's World of Poetry trivia questions of the day. .

  • August 9

    Question:

    What character from Shakespeare's The Tempest provided the title for Sylvia Plath's most famous poetry collection?

    Answer ->

    Ariel.

  • August 8

    Question:

    The Lowell family of Boston produced which three prominent figures in American Poetry?

    Answer ->

    James Russell Lowell, Amy Lowell, and Robert Lowell

  • August 7

    Question:

    What poet refused to accept the National Medal of Arts in 1997 saying, "[Art] means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of the power which holds it hostage."

    Answer ->

    Adrienne Rich. She indicated a belief that art was inconsistent with the "cynical politics" of the Clinton administration.

  • August 6

    Question:

    What San Francisco poet and publisher echoed Ralph Waldo Emerson's letter to Whitman when he wrote to Allen Ginsberg asking to publish "Howl"?

    Answer ->

    Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Ferlinghetti wrote, "I greet you at the beginning of a great career. When do I get the manuscript?" Emerson had written to Whitman, "I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which must yet have had a long foreground somewhere, for such a start."

  • August 5

    Question:

    What jazz saxophonist's free-form bop style of playing was a major inspiration for the free-form writing of the Beat poets?

    Answer ->

    Charlie Parker. Jack Kerouac considered him "as important as Beethoven."

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