Poetry Puzzles for Prizes

1. In 2016, Bob Dylan became the first musician to win which prestigious award for his poetic songwriting?

The Pulitzer PrizeThe Man Booker PrizeThe Nobel Prize in LiteratureThe Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award

2. Who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 for his collection Gitanjali?

Rabindranath TagoreRumiKamala DasMirza Ghalib

3. What is the primary theme of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem Ozymandias?

Love and devotionThe power of nature over manThe impermanence of power and human achievementsThe beauty of ancient architecture

4. Complete this famous Khalil Gibran quote from The Prophet: "Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of _______."

Life’s longing for itselfYour eternal loveThe universe’s grand designFate and destiny

5. Who wrote The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock?

Ezra PoundRobert BrowningT.S. EliotWilliam Butler Yeats

6. Which poem features the lines: "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul"?

“The Charge of the Light Brigade” – Alfred, Lord Tennyson“Invictus” – William Ernest Henley“The Man with the Hoe” – Edwin Markham“Ulysses” – Alfred, Lord Tennyson

7. Which famous American poet is known for short, untitled poems and frequent use of dashes and unconventional punctuation?

Emily DickinsonWalt WhitmanLangston HughesE.E. Cummings

8. Which poem is a dramatic monologue in which the speaker unveils his dark nature while discussing a portrait of his late wife?

“Ode on a Grecian Urn” – John Keats“My Last Duchess” – Robert Browning“Porphyria’s Lover” – Robert Browning“The Prelude” – William Wordsworth

9. Which poet is known for celebrating the "barbaric yawp" in Leaves of Grass?

Allen GinsbergRobert FrostWalt WhitmanLangston Hughes

10. Which of the following is a defining characteristic of a Shakespearean sonnet?

Three quatrains and a final rhyming coupletA strict 5-7-5 syllable patternA repeating refrain every third lineThe absence of rhyme or meter

11. Who wrote the epic poem Paradise Lost, which explores the fall of man?

Geoffrey ChaucerJohn MiltonAlexander PopeWilliam Blake

12. The poem The Tyger, with its famous opening "Tyger Tyger, burning bright," was written by:

William WordsworthWilliam BlakeSamuel Taylor ColeridgeJohn Keats

13. What is the correct term for a poem that tells a story?

SonnetElegyBalladLimerick

14. Who considered himself a poet first, musician second and even published poetry?

Jim MorrisonCat StevensJimi HendrixElvis Presley

15. Which poet wrote the following line: "I want to know if you can stand in the centre of the fire and not shrink back"?

RumiOriah Mountain DreamerMaya AngelouRobert Frost