Question 1/12
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A free bird leaps on the back/ Of the wind and floats downstream /Till the current ends and dips his wing / In the orange suns rays/ And dares to claim the sky.
Gwendolyn Brooks
Maya Angelou
Ai
Question 2/12
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nobody ever finds/ the one. the city dumps fill/ the junkyards fill/ the madhouses fill/ the hospitals fill/ the graveyards fill nothing else/ fills.
Charles Bukowski
Conrad Aiken
Ralph Angel
Question 3/12
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here is the deepest secret nobody knows/ (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud/ and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows/ higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)/ and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart.
Marvin Bell
Wendell Berry
E. E. Cummings
Question 4/12
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Nobody knows this little Rose --/ It might a pilgrim be/ Did I not take it from the ways/ And lift it up to thee.
Sylvia Plath
Emily Dickinson
Elizabeth Bishop
Question 5/12
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For Thine is/ Life is/ For Thine is the This is the way the world ends/ This is the way the world ends/ This is the way the world ends/ Not with a bang but a whimper.
Raymond Carver
Hart Crane
T. S. Eliot
Question 6/12
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That you are fair or wise is vain,/ Or strong, or rich, or generous;/ You must have also the untaught strain/ That sheds beauty on the rose./ There is a melody born of melody,/ Which melts the world into a sea.
Russell Edson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Mark van Doren
Question 7/12
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Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,/ And sorry I could not travel both/ And be one traveler, long I stood/ And looked down one as far as I could/ To where it bent in the undergrowth.
Robert Frost
John Gould Fletcher
Eugene Field
Question 8/12
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I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by/ madness, starving hysterical naked,/dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn/ looking for an angry fix,/ angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly/connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night.
Randall Jarrell
Donald Hall
Allen Ginsberg
Question 9/12
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Birds singing/ in the dark/ —Rainy dawn.
Galway Kinnell
Jack Kerouac
Larry Levis
Question 10/12
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Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,/ Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,/ While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,/ As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. / "'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door - / Only this, and nothing more."
Edwin Markham
Herman Melville
Edgar Allan Poe
Question 11/12
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Tree you are,/ Moss you are,/ You are violets with wind above them./ A child - so high - you are,/ And all this is folly to the world.
Ezra Pound
Robert Pinsky
Carl Rakosi
Question 12/12
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Once in English they said America. Was it English to them./ Once they said Belgian./ We like a fog./ Do you for weather./ Are we brave./ Are we true./ Have we the national colour.
Anne Sexton
Gertrude Stein
Eleanor Wilner
You couldn't care less about poetry. T. S. Elliot, E. E. Cummings, Robert Frost.... What do they matter in this day and age? Well done for trying anyways!
Indifferent To Poetry
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Right!
Well done! You have a fair knowledge of US poets and their poems. You are clearly a poetry lover (or else someone who has a very good memory of those english classes from school?) Great!
Poetry Lover
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Right!
Fantastic! You know your US poets and their poems extremely well. We bet we could throw you a poem name and you would have no trouble citing it all. Impressive!
Poetry Expert
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Right!
Check Your Answers
Play Again
Do you love US poets? Could you cite their poems off-by-heart? If not, perhaps you remember them from school? Why don't you take this quiz and find out? You will get an excerpt from a poem. Your task? To guess the poet of course!
1
A free bird leaps on the back/ Of the wind and floats downstream /Till the current ends and dips his wing / In the orange suns rays/ And dares to claim the sky.
Gwendolyn Brooks
Maya Angelou
Ai
2
nobody ever finds/ the one. the city dumps fill/ the junkyards fill/ the madhouses fill/ the hospitals fill/ the graveyards fill nothing else/ fills.
Charles Bukowski
Conrad Aiken
Ralph Angel
3
here is the deepest secret nobody knows/ (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud/ and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows/ higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)/ and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart.
Marvin Bell
Wendell Berry
E. E. Cummings
4
Nobody knows this little Rose --/ It might a pilgrim be/ Did I not take it from the ways/ And lift it up to thee.
Sylvia Plath
Emily Dickinson
Elizabeth Bishop
5
For Thine is/ Life is/ For Thine is the This is the way the world ends/ This is the way the world ends/ This is the way the world ends/ Not with a bang but a whimper.
Raymond Carver
Hart Crane
T. S. Eliot
6
That you are fair or wise is vain,/ Or strong, or rich, or generous;/ You must have also the untaught strain/ That sheds beauty on the rose./ There is a melody born of melody,/ Which melts the world into a sea.
Russell Edson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Mark van Doren
7
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,/ And sorry I could not travel both/ And be one traveler, long I stood/ And looked down one as far as I could/ To where it bent in the undergrowth.
Robert Frost
John Gould Fletcher
Eugene Field
8
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by/ madness, starving hysterical naked,/dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn/ looking for an angry fix,/ angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly/connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night.
Randall Jarrell
Donald Hall
Allen Ginsberg
9
Birds singing/ in the dark/ —Rainy dawn.
Galway Kinnell
Jack Kerouac
Larry Levis
10
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,/ Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,/ While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,/ As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. / "'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door - / Only this, and nothing more."
Edwin Markham
Herman Melville
Edgar Allan Poe
11
Tree you are,/ Moss you are,/ You are violets with wind above them./ A child - so high - you are,/ And all this is folly to the world.
Ezra Pound
Robert Pinsky
Carl Rakosi
12
Once in English they said America. Was it English to them./ Once they said Belgian./ We like a fog./ Do you for weather./ Are we brave./ Are we true./ Have we the national colour.
Anne Sexton
Gertrude Stein
Eleanor Wilner
