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ventaSome time ago, I posted a poetry quiz on here. Then forgot to post the answers. The winner, with an impressive 9 1/2 out of 10 was ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bopeepsheep. She could really have had 10, but I was quite harsh with her answer about the Big Steamers. Just to stop her getting too cocky ;)
shui_long came in as runner up, and we have an honourable mention for dr_doug whose answers made me laugh a lot (and quite often his wrong answers indicated that he knew perfectly well what the right answer was).
The answers... with tediously long commentaries behind the cuts.
1. Who recommended (or at least remembered) travelling to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands, and to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head?
These poor navigational suggestions were taken from the reminiscences of the rolling English drunkard, as written about in The Rolling English Road, by GK Chesterton. I was also willing to accept Chesterton as the answer :)
This is one of the first poems I remember consciously deciding to learn by heart (as distinct from the ones that just sank in). I recently discovered that there is a pub in London called "Paradise by way of Kensal Green". I must visit it.
2. I grow old, I grow old. What fashion statement do intend to make?
According to The Lovesong of Alfred J Prufrock wearing the bottoms of one's trousers rolled is where it's at.
Lots of people answered they'd be wearing purple, with a red hat that doesn't go. That is admittedly a valid thing to do when you are old, and a poem I like a lot. I think the Prufrock's refrain I grow old, I grow old means I can still consider the wearing purple answer to be wrong, though.
3. Which incredibly implausible conveyance carried ivory, apes and peacocks, sandalwood and cedarwood and sweet white wine?
Many people correctly spotted that the Quinquireme of Nineveh, from John Masefield's Cargoes carried those particular goods. A few more correctly spotted that that was the right poem, but couldn't remember any of the vessels except the dirty British coaster.
For all who commented that they hoped it was the quinquireme because they couldn't remember the second verse, the second vessel was a stately Spanish galleon :)
I have vague memories of my Grandad reading this poem to me, which means I must have been six or under. I remember asking what a quinquireme was, and a galleon. I didn't ask about a coaster, because I knew what they were - the little square mats you put mugs on. It was years before I applied rational thought and realised that it must have a second meaning. My parents still commonly refer to the small mats as "dirty British coasters".
4. What, according to Kipling, will happen to you if you stop the Big Steamers?
I feel it was slightly cheating including Big Steamers in a poetry quiz, because I know it as a song (the folk singer Peter Bellamy wrote a beautiful setting of it, which The Wilsons sing). However, it's morally a poem and it details all the foodstuffs that the big steamers carry to England, ending with the threat that if you stop them you will starve.
People answered in a variety of ways, including Dr Doug's lovely answer that if you stop them you "...shall surely be damned to an eternity of the hell that is a Continental breakfast".
5. On the night before the dance, Mad Carew seemed in a trance And they chaffed him as they puffed at their cigars. What was Mad Carew worryied about?
I've always been a bit confused by The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God. As far as I can tell, it's a perfectly normal (if rather Victorian melodramatic) poem about a guy who does something bloody stupid to win his sweetheart (who was bloody stupid to ask it of him), viz. steal the god's eye. No wonder he wanders about in a trance before heading off on this foolhardy mission. It doesn't end well for him.
However, there seems to be Something Mysterious about this poem. My dad thinks the first line should always be interrupted by someone saying "I say, I say, I say" and telling a dreadful joke. A couple of people's answers suggested something similar. Can anyone enlighten me ?
6. Who, or what, did John Donne deem a "busie old foole"?
Donne considered the "unruly sunne" to be annoying interference into his time in bed. A version with modern spelling can be found here. More people should address giant flaming balls of gas as "saucy pendantic wretch", I think.
7. The pail by the wall would be half-full of water... and what else?
I was quite surprised how few people got this - by which I mean nobody exceptbopeepsheep got it. Robert Louis Stevenson's Escape at Bedtime, telling the tale of a small child venturing out after dark was one of the staples of my childhood. I always loved the idea that the bucket was "half-full of water and stars". It's still the first thing I think of when I see the night sky reflected in water.
8. What, according to WH Auden (in one of his lighter moments) can no-one hear without a quickening of the heart?
Yes, this poem is, as many people noted, the one about the train. However, it is the sound of the postman's knock (delivering the post which came on the Night Mail) which quickens people's hearts "for who can bear to feel himself forgotten?"
9. My bread is sawdust mixed with straw, my jam is polish for the floor What am I?
This peculiar diet was eaten by John Betjeman's church mouse.
I am reliably informed by the mother that, knowing this poem, I looked round some sort of special-event service at church, noted the large numbers of people not usually there of a Sunday, and asked my mother who the "other mice with pagan minds" were. Sometimes I think I must have been a positively repellent child.
10. What was built when twice five miles of fertile ground with walls and towers were girdled round?
Asbateleur said, that was the spec for the pleasure dome which Kubla Khan desired to be built. Or so Coleridge tells us.
If anyone cares, the subject line and cut-text of the original quiz and the subject from this post are all from Kipling's fabulous The Mary Gloster.
bopeepsheep. She could really have had 10, but I was quite harsh with her answer about the Big Steamers. Just to stop her getting too cocky ;) shui_long came in as runner up, and we have an honourable mention for dr_doug whose answers made me laugh a lot (and quite often his wrong answers indicated that he knew perfectly well what the right answer was).The answers... with tediously long commentaries behind the cuts.
1. Who recommended (or at least remembered) travelling to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands, and to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head?
These poor navigational suggestions were taken from the reminiscences of the rolling English drunkard, as written about in The Rolling English Road, by GK Chesterton. I was also willing to accept Chesterton as the answer :)
This is one of the first poems I remember consciously deciding to learn by heart (as distinct from the ones that just sank in). I recently discovered that there is a pub in London called "Paradise by way of Kensal Green". I must visit it.
2. I grow old, I grow old. What fashion statement do intend to make?
According to The Lovesong of Alfred J Prufrock wearing the bottoms of one's trousers rolled is where it's at.
Lots of people answered they'd be wearing purple, with a red hat that doesn't go. That is admittedly a valid thing to do when you are old, and a poem I like a lot. I think the Prufrock's refrain I grow old, I grow old means I can still consider the wearing purple answer to be wrong, though.
3. Which incredibly implausible conveyance carried ivory, apes and peacocks, sandalwood and cedarwood and sweet white wine?
Many people correctly spotted that the Quinquireme of Nineveh, from John Masefield's Cargoes carried those particular goods. A few more correctly spotted that that was the right poem, but couldn't remember any of the vessels except the dirty British coaster.
For all who commented that they hoped it was the quinquireme because they couldn't remember the second verse, the second vessel was a stately Spanish galleon :)
I have vague memories of my Grandad reading this poem to me, which means I must have been six or under. I remember asking what a quinquireme was, and a galleon. I didn't ask about a coaster, because I knew what they were - the little square mats you put mugs on. It was years before I applied rational thought and realised that it must have a second meaning. My parents still commonly refer to the small mats as "dirty British coasters".
4. What, according to Kipling, will happen to you if you stop the Big Steamers?
I feel it was slightly cheating including Big Steamers in a poetry quiz, because I know it as a song (the folk singer Peter Bellamy wrote a beautiful setting of it, which The Wilsons sing). However, it's morally a poem and it details all the foodstuffs that the big steamers carry to England, ending with the threat that if you stop them you will starve.
People answered in a variety of ways, including Dr Doug's lovely answer that if you stop them you "...shall surely be damned to an eternity of the hell that is a Continental breakfast".
5. On the night before the dance, Mad Carew seemed in a trance And they chaffed him as they puffed at their cigars. What was Mad Carew worryied about?
I've always been a bit confused by The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God. As far as I can tell, it's a perfectly normal (if rather Victorian melodramatic) poem about a guy who does something bloody stupid to win his sweetheart (who was bloody stupid to ask it of him), viz. steal the god's eye. No wonder he wanders about in a trance before heading off on this foolhardy mission. It doesn't end well for him.
However, there seems to be Something Mysterious about this poem. My dad thinks the first line should always be interrupted by someone saying "I say, I say, I say" and telling a dreadful joke. A couple of people's answers suggested something similar. Can anyone enlighten me ?
6. Who, or what, did John Donne deem a "busie old foole"?
Donne considered the "unruly sunne" to be annoying interference into his time in bed. A version with modern spelling can be found here. More people should address giant flaming balls of gas as "saucy pendantic wretch", I think.
7. The pail by the wall would be half-full of water... and what else?
I was quite surprised how few people got this - by which I mean nobody except
bopeepsheep got it. Robert Louis Stevenson's Escape at Bedtime, telling the tale of a small child venturing out after dark was one of the staples of my childhood. I always loved the idea that the bucket was "half-full of water and stars". It's still the first thing I think of when I see the night sky reflected in water.8. What, according to WH Auden (in one of his lighter moments) can no-one hear without a quickening of the heart?
Yes, this poem is, as many people noted, the one about the train. However, it is the sound of the postman's knock (delivering the post which came on the Night Mail) which quickens people's hearts "for who can bear to feel himself forgotten?"
9. My bread is sawdust mixed with straw, my jam is polish for the floor What am I?
This peculiar diet was eaten by John Betjeman's church mouse.
I am reliably informed by the mother that, knowing this poem, I looked round some sort of special-event service at church, noted the large numbers of people not usually there of a Sunday, and asked my mother who the "other mice with pagan minds" were. Sometimes I think I must have been a positively repellent child.
10. What was built when twice five miles of fertile ground with walls and towers were girdled round?
As
bateleur said, that was the spec for the pleasure dome which Kubla Khan desired to be built. Or so Coleridge tells us.If anyone cares, the subject line and cut-text of the original quiz and the subject from this post are all from Kipling's fabulous The Mary Gloster.
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no subject
Date: 2010-04-14 01:41 pm (UTC)"Something about muffins" isn't enough for the full mark? No, probably not.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-14 01:45 pm (UTC)I must have read Escape at Bedtime as I know I had A Child's Garden of Verses - I guess others stuck in my mind more, like Bed In Summer.
(Coincidentally, I couldn't get to sleep last night and was reciting all the epic poetry I knew to myself - Invictus and Vitae Lampada amongst others.)
no subject
Date: 2010-04-14 01:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-14 01:52 pm (UTC)The last one was the only other one which was vaguely familiar, although I have read A Child's Garden of Verses
no subject
Date: 2010-04-14 02:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-14 02:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-14 02:12 pm (UTC)The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God is the centre of an ancient two-person party piece, where one person recites the poem with their arms behind their back, and the other slips their arms through under the front person's armpits and makes ludicrous accompanying gestures. Splayed hands with thumbs to forehead every time "Mad Carew" is mentioned, shoveling motions for "tends the grave", and (in?)appropriate groinal gestures for all the mentions of "ball". And so on. It doubtless had an actual origin in the mists of time but it was long lost by the time I came upon it.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-14 02:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-14 06:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-14 06:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-16 11:59 am (UTC)Do you know another poem about England before the Romans came? Or possibly only the Normans, since it's more likely about the Saxons than the Celts.
The idea has been haunting the edges of my mind since I read that first line, but I don't really know where to start looking.