Poetry Potpourri Trivia Quiz

Answer: Gunga Din

Kipling was born in India, in 1865, and took inspiration from the country in much of his work. The poem about Gunga Din, a water carrier who tended to wounded British soldiers, is told from the viewpoint of one such soldier, whose life is saved by the Indian. The soldier expresses his regrets for his poor treatment of Gunga Din, who has been killed while carrying out his duties, with the poem's last line recognising that the Indian proved himself the better man.

Mowgli is from 'The Jungle Book', Kim from the 1901 novel of the same name and Jack is from the poem 'My Boy Jack', a victim of World War I - all from works by Kipling.

Answer: Light

The poem does not have a title as such - 'Do not go gentle into that good night' is the first line, followed by 'old age should burn and rave at close of day; rage, rage against the dying of the light'. According to my research, Thomas wrote it in 1947 but it was not published until 1951.

Although the poem is often said to have been written in response to his father's failing health, the dates don't quite match as Thomas senior did not die until near the end of 1952, when Dylan himself had less than a year left to live.

It may well have been revised in response, though. If you've never heard Michael Sheen perform this poem, I recommend you to find it.

Answer: William Shakespeare

I hope the inclusion of the word 'bard' pointed you in the right direction, since this poem is not particularly well known. The turtle of the title is a short name for a turtle dove, which Shakespeare makes clear in the words of the poem - it is not a sonnet, the form usually associated with him, either.

Interpretations of its meaning vary, but it is widely accepted that the deaths of the phoenix and turtle dove represent the death of ideal love. Some scholars argue that the phoenix was a reference to Elizabeth I who was nearing the end of her life when the poem was published in 1601.

Answer: Jerusalem

The poem was set to music in 1916 by Hubert Parry, with the version using Sir Edward Elgar's arrangement being the best known, and has become a patriotic song in the UK, mainly for the English nation. In the poem, Blake envisages Jesus as a visitor to England, and describes Him as seeing the 'dark, satanic mills' of the Industrial Revolution as well as the 'pleasant pastures'. The poem was probably inspired by the legend that Joseph of Arimathea may have brought Jesus to Glastonbury.

Eden is a place from the Old Testament, although both Bethlehem (place of birth) and Nazareth (childhood home) are associated with Jesus.

Answer: Robert Frost

Robert Frost was born in California in 1874, although he spent much of his life in New England. Having spent three years in the original England, between 1912 and 1915, where some of his earliest poetry was published , Frost settled in New Hampshire. During his time in the UK, he met a fellow poet named Edward Thomas who is accepted as being the inspiration for 'The Road Not Taken' - in this case a literal one during a walk the two took together.

The poem ends with the lines 'I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference', and has been taken to suggest that not following the expected path can be the better choice. Frost was the first poet to speak at the inauguration of an American president, reciting a poem for John F Kennedy in 1961.

Answer: William McGonagall

William Topaz McGonagall, to give him his full name, claimed to have been born in Edinburgh, although he may well have been Irish born. He is primarily associated with Dundee, where he worked as a weaver, before turning to poetry in his fifties. McGonagall's self belief in his skills exceeded that of of his peers, although that didn't prevent him from seeking patronage from Queen Victoria.

His writing is doggerel, to put it kindly, but he did manage to eke a living from it for quite some time - often as a figure of fun.

It has to be acknowledged though that his name is still recognised more than one hundred years after his death, an achievement many better writers can't claim.

Answer: Percy Bysshe Shelley

These are the first lines to the ode 'To a Skylark' which Shelley wrote in 1820. The poem was inspired by hearing the song of the bird during a spring walk in Italy. It is often compared to 'Ode to a Nightingale' written a year earlier by John Keats - both poets were motivated by the beauty of the birdsong they heard.

Shelley had very little time left to live in 1820 since he was destined to drown when the boat he was in capsized in July 1822, aged only 29. Among his other works are 'Adonais', in praise of Keats who had died in 1821 from tuberculosis, and 'Ozymandias' from 1818.

Answer: William Butler Yeats

Yeats was born in 1865 and began writing when still in his teens. He is one of Ireland's best known poets, and also served as a politician during the time of the Irish Free State. Yeats was also one of the founders of Dublin's Abbey Theatre. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.

Among his poems are 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree' (1888) and 'An Irish Airman Foresees his Death' (1918). 'Easter, 1916' was written in response to the Easter Rising of April 1916, a protest against British rule, and completed in September 1916. It includes the lines 'All changed, changed utterly; a terrible beauty is born'. 'Sailing to Byzantium' dates from 1926 and begins with the line 'That is no country for old men', used for the title of a novel by Cormac McCarthy and the film adaptation of the book.

Answer: Hope

The poem was first included in a collection made by Dickinson herself in 1861 along with eighteen other poems, although they were never published. Following Emily's death in 1886, her sister Lavinia discovered the collection which was eventually published in 1891. Dickinson employs the metaphor of a bird which battles on against all adversity, singing even during storms and windy weather as an analogy to how hope remains despite the odds.

Answer: Red Wheelbarrow

This is the shortest poem mentioned in the quiz and doesn't have a title. Williams just gave it a number, XXII, in his book of poems called 'Spring and All' which was published in 1923. The brief lines describe the sight of a red wheelbarrow, still wet from rain and next to white chickens.

The poet says 'so much depends upon' the wheelbarrow, with the most straightforward interpretation being a recognition of the importance of farmers and what they produce to everyday life.