Poetry in Motion Trivia Quiz

Answer: Annabel Lee

"It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know, By the name of Annabel Lee"; this was the last complete poem by Edgar Allan Poe, and it was published shortly after his death in 1849. The tone of the poem is somber, about a lost love, possibly based on his young wife, Virginia, who was only 13 when they married and who, tragically, died of tuberculosis in 1847 at the age of 24; tuberculosis was also responsible for the deaths of Poe's mother, brother and foster mother, which might help explain some of the darkness of his short stories.

Answer: Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri in 1928. In 1971 she published the Pulitzer Prize-nominated poetry collection "Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Die". In 1993 she wrote and performed "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Clinton's inaugural ceremony, the first inaugural recitation since Robert Frost read his poem "The Gift Outright" for President Kennedy in 1961.

Her memoir "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" made literary history as the first nonfiction best-seller by a black woman. President Obama called her "a brilliant writer, a fierce friend, and a truly phenomenal woman".

The world was greatly diminished by her death in 2014.

Answer: William Ernest Henley

William Ernest Henley (1849-1903) wrote the Victorian poem in 1875, but it was not published until 1888. It appeared in his first volume of poems, "Book of Verses", and was originally untitled. Henley had had a leg amputated due to complications from tuberculosis; when told that the other leg needed to be amputated, he chose to go to surgeon Dr. Joseph Lister who, after several surgeries, was able to save the leg.

While recovering in the infirmary, he penned "Invictus", from which we get the lines "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul". All of the incorrect choices are also known for their famous poems.

Answer: Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) was a poet, satirist and critic best known for her acerbic wit (like a distaff Oscar Wilde). In the 1920s, when women first got the vote, she was an esteemed part of literary society and was a founding member of the famous Algonquin Round Table.

When the group broke up, Dorothy went to Hollywood to be a screenwriter and was nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Writing; one in 1938 for "A Star Is Born" and 10 years later for "Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman". Her success in California was brief as she was involved in left-wing politics and was placed on the Hollywood blacklist.

Answer: Ted Hughes

The poet and author of "The Bell Jar", Sylvia Plath, married British Poet Laureate Ted Hughes in 1956. It is a pretty well-known fact that she committed suicide in their kitchen in 1963 after discovering that her husband was having an affair; this left Ted in charge of their two very young children. What is less well known is the fact that, just six years later, his mistress, Assia Wevil, killed herself and their four year old daughter.

When Ted's mother, who was in the hospital for knee surgery, learned of the suicide and murder of her granddaughter, she suffered a blood clot, went into a coma and died three days later.

Answer: War Poets

War poets are generally those who served in the military during World War I. In England, for example, some like Wilfred Owen, Charles Sorley and Edward Thomas did not survive the war, while others wrote of the experiences which scarred them. Canadian war poets included Robert W. Service, who served as an ambulance driver and war correspondent and is best known for "The Shooting of Dan McGrew", and John McCrae, who authored "In Flanders Fields the poppies blow/Between the crosses, row on row/That mark our place; and in the sky/The larks, still bravely singing, fly/Scarce heard amid the guns below..."

Answer: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The tale of the silversmith who rode around warning the colonists of the coming of the British on April 18, 1775 is commemorated in "Paul Revere's Ride" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882). I had to memorize it for school and I still remember it to this day! Longfellow was a professor and a poet, and his first major collections were "Voices of the Night" (1839) and "Ballads and Other Poems" in 1841. Among his other famous works were "The Song of Hiawatha" and "Evangeline".

By the way, William Dawes also rode to alert the minutemen on that fateful night but, for some reason, was not mentioned in the poem.

Answer: Allen Ginsberg

The lines above belong to Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" which was written in 1955 and published as part of the 1956 collection titled "Howl and Other Poems". The poem, with its anguished cry against social conformity and literary tradition was, perhaps, the real beginning of the 'Beat Generation'.

The term was said to have been coined by Jack Kerouac to represent their status during the post war years as 'down and out'. Ginsberg was one of the leaders of the 'Beat Generation' and the counter-cultural upheaval which followed, which was vehemently opposed to militarism, materialism and sexual repression, i.e., "make love, not war"!

Answer: John Milton

John Milton (1608-1674) was a poet and a scholar; he was employed as a civil servant under the rule of Oliver Cromwell. "Paradise Lost", the story of the Fall of Man, was written in 1667 in blank verse. Prior to that, in 1644, Milton penned "Aereopagitica" which condemned censorship, providing an influential treatise in favor of freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

His feats are made even more remarkable by the fact that, by 1651, he was completely blind. "On His Blindness" is one of the best known of his sonnets; the poem ends with the quote "They also serve who only stand and wait".

Answer: Ozymandias

"Ozymandias" was written by Percy Bysshe Shelley (husband of Mary Shelley who wrote "Frankenstein"). Ozymandias was an alternate name for the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II; in 1817 the British Museum announced the acquisition of a large portion of the statue of Ramesses from the 13th century BCE, and this may have inspired Shelley to write the poem.

Shelley's sonnet delves into the fate of history and the fact that all empires are transitory and destined to oblivion. Keats, on the other hand, wrote all of the other poems listed, which include the words "Beauty is truth, truth beauty - that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know" (from "Ode on a Grecian Urn").