Poetry Trivia Questions
In case you missed them, here are the past five Columbia Granger's World of Poetry trivia questions of the day.
December 14
Question:
Which poet, often lauded as one of the worst poets in the English language, is parodied in the British radio series, The Goon Show ?
Answer
The Goon Show 's Peter Sellers plays tragedian William McGoonagal in "The Pevensy Bay Disaster", first aired November 22, 1955. The episode is a send-up of William McGonagal's "Tay Bridge Disaster." Science Fiction writer Terry Pratchet also parodies McGonagal in his Discworld series, naming his Nac Mac Feegle battle poets "Gonagals."
December 13
Question:
What Anglo-American poet, who would win many prizes late in her career, first became known for her biography of Sylvia Plath?
Answer
December 12
Question:
The French sculptor Rodin hired an admirer to be his secretary, 1905-07, who would later be judged to be one of Europe's greatest poets. Who was it?
Answer
December 11
Question:
What New York School poet's death involved a dune buggy?
Answer
Frank O'Hara was struck by a dune buggy at Fire Island in the small hours of July 24, 1966. He died the next day of his injuries.
December 10
Question:
Who invented the poetic form themesostic?
Answer
John Cage invented the mesostic. He said of his invention,"Like acrostics, mesotics are written in the conventional way horizontally, but at the same time they follow a vertical rule, down the middle not down the edge as in an acrostic, a string spells a word or name, not necessarily connected with what is being written, though it may be. This vertical rule is lettristic and in my practice the letters are capitalized. Between two capitals in a perfect or 100% mesostic neither letter may appear in lower case. .... In the writing of the wing words, the horizontal text, the letters of the vertical string help me out of sentimentality. I have something to do, a puzzle to solve. This way of responding makes me feel in this respect one with the Japanese people, who formerly, I once learned, turned their letter writing into the writing of poems. In taking the next step in my work, the exploration of nonintention, I don't solve the puzzle that the mesostic string presents. Instead I write or find a source text which is then used as an oracle. I ask it what word shall I use for this letter and what one for the next, etc. This frees me from memory, taste, likes, and dislikes, By means of Mesolist, a program by Jim Rosenberg, all words that satisfy the mesostic rule are listed. IC [a program that generates the I Ching numbers, available for downloading on the Net] then chooses which words in the lists are to be used and gives me all the central words, the position of each in the source material identified by page, line, and column. I then add all the wing words from the source text following of course the rule Mesolist does within the limit of forty-five characters to the right and the same to the left. Then I take out the words I don't want. With respect to the source material, I am in a global situation. Words come first from here and then from there. The situation is not linear. It is as though I am in a forest hunting for ideas."
