Odd Facts Poetry Quiz

If you think you can answer one or more of these send your answers to Bewitjanus@aol.com with "Poetry Quiz" as the subject heading. I will post the scores of respondents. If you Google to get the answers (i.e. cheat), please thwack yourself with something nasty that leaves a mark!

   Poetry Quiz

1. Which poet's father invented Lifesavers candy? (There's some irony here.)

2. Which poet was said to have perished of a bad review? (This is obviously ridiculous but oft-repeated.)

3. Whose last words were "My vocabulary did this to me?"

4. Which poet wrote a poem about polar bears in a zoo waiting for sea-ice to break loose and smash their cages to free them?

5. Which poet threw lice from his head onto priests and clergymen as they passed him?

6. Which poet killed a dog and then hung a sign around the animal's neck with writing on it, apparently as a critique of the meaninglessness of expression?

7. Which poet's lover had a blood vessel burst in her neck, and then died slowly in their cold apartment, warmed mainly by the cat who lay atop her?

8. Which poet began one of her or his poetry volumes by listing the dozens of publishers who had turned down the manuscript? (I specify: which poet did this first?)

9. Which poet has his head turned upside down and is always drinking?

10. Which poet would recite poetry in a trance state for his friends, even in public places like bars or on the street?


Aaron Tieger took this quiz and scored 4, although I really enjoyed some of his "wrong" answers (I think he was having some fun with inserting friends in some of the weirder questions lol) and he may have offered an alternative answer for number 8...it sounds plausible but I would have to research it. For question 9 he asked if that were not true of basically every poet lol. Probably, but the answer is a very specific poet. I will change question 8 to read which poet did this FIRST so there won't be any ambiguity in case his alternative answer is also correct. So the HIGH SCORE AT THIS POINT IS 4....the first person to get 10 will get a prize of a poetry volume from my library (no...not one of my books, I'm not that much of a shill!)...and I'll try to make it something good.

UPDATE: Gina Myers just sent me her answers and she moved into position number one with 5 correct answers (the quiz is half solved!) but Aaron wrote another email indicating he knew the true identity of the poet in question 5 and was having fun with a friend (as I suspected) by accusing him of this nefarious practice. So it's a two-way tie right now and of course anyone may update their answers at any time and go on to claim the prize. I don't tell responders which questions they got correct, however, and don't give any answers out. I promised myself I would not. It all depends on the person, I suppose, but I would think questions four and six are the two hardest questions. Neither answer is an obscure entity, however.