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 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."
August 4
Question:
What San Francisco poet claimed an extended series of his poems were written by a Japanese courtesan?
Answer
Kenneth Rexroth. The poems are published under the title The Love Songs of Marichiko. This literary hoax was well-received at the time.
August 3
Question:
What epic-sized poem by James Merrill takes its structure from a Ouija board?
Answer
"The Changing Light at Sandover." The poem has three parts: "Mirabell: Books of Number" is divided in to sections numbered 0 to 9; "The Book of Ephraim" has a section for each letter of the alphabet; and "Scripts for the Pageant" is divided into 3 large sections "Yes," "&," "No."
