Global Rhymes Trivia Quiz

Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902) was a Japanese poet of the Meiji period. He is credited with reforming "haiku", and his "After Killing a Spider" is a good example of that art form. In only three lines, the 17 syllables convey a depth of feeling. "After killing / a spider, how lonely I feel / in the cold of night!"

Dorothea Mackellar (1885-1968) was born and died in Sydney, Australia. Mackellar started writing "My Country" in 1904 when she was travelling abroad and the poem was published in 1908 after she returned to Australia. The second stanza begins "I love a sunburnt country / A land of sweeping plains, / Of ragged mountain ranges, / Of droughts and flooding rains."

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was born and died in what was then known as Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, part of the British Raj; it is now known as Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Tagore was the first non-European to win a Nobel Prize, winning in 1913 for "Gitanjali", a collection of poetry. Tagore originally wrote the poems in the Bengali language, and he translated them into English for the collection that was titled "Song Offerings" in a 1912 English translation.

Anna Akhmatova is a pen name for Anna Gorenka (1889-1966), who had two distinct periods of work, 1912-1925 and 1936-1966. "You should appear less often in my dreams" (original capitalization) was written in 1921 when her works were less political. The poem is a tender and wistful contrast of an idealized romantic relationship in a dream with a less loving reality. An evocative passage: "You should appear less often in my dreams, / Since we meet so frequently; / Yet only in night's sanctuary / Are you sad, troubled, and tender"

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was a German writer, scientist, and statesman whose influence was widely felt in those fields for centuries after his life. "Der du von dem Himmel bist" ("Thou who art from heaven") was written in 1776 and is also known as "Wanderer's Nightsong" when set to music by Franz Schubert in 1815.

A translation from Henry Longfellow starts "Thou that from the heavens art, / Every pain and sorrow stillest, / And the doubly wretched heart / Doubly with refreshment fillest"

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) is known as the "Father of the Italian Language" since he wrote many pieces in the vernacular Tuscan dialect, his native tongue, instead of the Latin and French that was dominant during his time. "The Divine Comedy" is a long narrative poem that was finished shortly before the author's death and portrays a medieval understanding of the afterlife. Famous lines include "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here" and "Consider your origin. You were not formed to live like brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge."

Frank Chipasula (born 1949) is an ethnically Malawian writer. Chipasula was exiled from Malawi in the 1970s and took up residence in the U.S. "A Love Poem for My Country" was published in 1984 and expresses his love for his country, anger at the political and social circumstances, and hope for the future.

The final stanza is: "I know a day will come and wash away my pain / And I will emerge from the night breaking into song / Like the sun, blowing out these evil stars."

Federico García Lorca (1898-1936) was born and died in Spain, assassinated by Nationalist forces when he was just 38 years old. "Romance Sonámbulo" ("Sleepwalking Ballad") was published in 1928 and is a vision of a dream that remains out of reach. The ending lines are: "Green I want you green / Green wind green branches / Boat on the sea and / horse on the mountain".

Robert Burns (1759-1796) is considered the national poet of Scotland. Many of his works are in a Scots dialect that is decipherable by English speakers. "To a Mouse" (1785) was said to have been written after Burns accidentally destroyed a mouse's nest while plowing a field.

The famous first line: "Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie, / O, what a panic's in thy breastie!" ("Little, sleek, cowering, timorous beast, / Oh, what a panic is in your breast!")

Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) is characterized as a "sage writer" of Victorian England, one who lectures their readers. "Dover Beach" was published in 1867 and was likely written as early as 1849. Dover Beach is in Kent, England, and Arnold may have written it while honeymooning there.

The beginning lines: "The sea is calm to-night, / The tide is full, the moon lies fair / Upon the straits; - on the French coast, the light / Gleams, and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,"

Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902-1987) was of Portuguese ethnicity, born in Brazil, and considered by many to be the Brazilian national poet. "Canção Amiga" ("Friendly Song") is printed on the Brazilian 50 Cruzados currency, and includes the lines "My life, our lives / They form a single diamond".

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) was a Chilean poet who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature "for a poetry that...brings alive a continent's destiny and dreams" according to the Nobel committee. "Cien Sonetos de Amor" (100 Love Sonnets) was a collection of his poetry that was published in 1959 and dedicated to a woman who became his third and final wife, Matilde Urrutia.

After Neruda's death, she edited and published his memoir titled "Confieso que he vivido" ("I confess that I have lived").

Rosario Castellanos (1925-1974) was an early champion of equality for women and indigenous people in Mexico. Her "Telenovela" speaks of the effect of television on culture, beginning "The site left vacant by Homer, / the center occupied by Scheherazade / (or before the invention of language, the place / where the people of the tribe gathered / to listen to the fire) / is now occupied by the Great Idiot Box."

Maya Angelou (1928-2014) was called "the black woman's poet laureate" by a reviewer in 2002. "Still I Rise" (1978) portrays strength and unbroken spirit with these opening lines: "You may write me down in history / With your bitter, twisted lies, / You may trod me in the very dirt / But still, like dust, I'll rise."

John McCrae (1872-1918) was a poet and physician who died serving with Canadian forces in France in WWI. His "In Flanders Fields", written in 1915, is one of the better-known war poems, and features in many military memorials and holidays. "We are the Dead. Short days ago / We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, / Loved and were loved, and now we lie, / In Flanders fields."