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 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 ->

    Robert Penn Warren

  • 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.

  • July 20

    Question:

    What famous Southern novelist's first foray into the world of letters was a book of poems named after Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Marble Faun ?

    Answer ->

    William Faulkner

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