Poetry Trivia Questions
In case you missed them, here are the past five Columbia Granger's World of Poetry trivia questions of the day. .
July 25
Question:
What twentieth-century Southern poet advocated permanent racial segregation earlier in his career, but renounced it later in life and published a book of interviews with African American leaders, including Martin Luther King and Malcolm X?
Answer
July 24
Question:
What prominent mid-twentieth century American poet moved to Nashville to study with Allen Tate, describing himself on arrival as having a "head . . . full of Miltonic, vaguely piratical ambitions. My only anchor was a suitcase, heavy with bad poetry"?
Answer
Robert Lowell. Compare his For the Union Dead with Tate's Ode to the Confederate Dead.
July 23
Question:
What American poet stopped writing poetry in 1927, only 7 years after starting?
Answer
John Crowe Ransom. According to his friend Robert Penn Warren, Ransom turned to him one day and said, "I'm gonna quit writing poetry."
July 22
Question:
What poet wrote the novel All the King's Men , detailing the rise and fall of the Louisiana politician Huey Long?
Answer
July 21
Question:
Which poet critic initially praised Hart Crane as "one of the small group of contemporary masters" in a review in Poetry Magazine , only to write of Crane in a later review, "the flaws in Mr. Crane's genius are, I believe, so great as to partake, if they persist, almost of the nature of public catastrophe"?
Answer
Yvor Winters. Crane blamed Winters' later review of his long poem "The Bridge," for the poem's lack of success. The two, who had been friends and correspondents, never spoke again.
