Quiz of the Day
Bad Poetry Day
Tuesday, 18 August 2026
Celebrate spectacularly terrible verse on Bad Poetry Day — but also the history, forms, and surprising power of great poetry from Homer to hip-hop
1. Who was the ancient Greek poet credited with composing the Iliad and the Odyssey?
- Sophocles
- Hesiod
- Homer
- Virgil
Homer — if he existed as a single person — composed these epics around the 8th century BCE, though they likely originated in an oral tradition centuries older. Whether Homer was one person or a tradition of poets is still debated. The Iliad and Odyssey are foundational texts of Western literature, inspiring countless works from Virgil's Aeneid to James Joyce's Ulysses.
2. What is the rhyme scheme of a Shakespearean (English) sonnet?
- ABBA ABBA CDECDE
- ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
- AABBA AABBA CDCD
- AABB CCDD EEFF GG
A Shakespearean sonnet follows the ABAB CDCD EFEF GG rhyme scheme — three quatrains and a closing couplet, always 14 lines in iambic pentameter. Shakespeare wrote 154 known sonnets. The Italian (Petrarchan) sonnet has a different structure (ABBA ABBA CDECDE), and was used by Petrarch to court Laura de Noves — a woman historians believe never returned his affection.
3. What is a haiku, and how many syllables does it contain?
- A Chinese poem with 20 characters
- A Thai poem with three lines of equal length
- A Japanese poem with 17 syllables in 5-7-5 pattern
- A Korean poem with 12 syllables
Haiku developed in Japan from the 17th century, with Matsuo Bashō as its most celebrated master. The most famous haiku is Bashō's: 'An old silent pond / A frog jumps into the pond / Splash! Silence again.' Traditional haiku include a 'kigo' (seasonal reference) and a 'kireji' (cutting word) that creates a juxtaposition or pause — elements often lost in English translations.
4. What is the name of the world's longest epic poem?
- The Ramayana
- The Mahabharata
- The Iliad
- Beowulf
The Mahabharata, the ancient Sanskrit epic of India, is the longest epic poem ever written — about 200,000 verse lines (1.8 million words), roughly 10 times the length of the Iliad and Odyssey combined. The Mahabharata includes the Bhagavad Gita, one of Hinduism's most important philosophical texts. Composed over centuries beginning around 400 BCE, it explores duty, war, and the nature of existence.
5. Which American poet wrote 'I heard a Fly buzz – when I died' and was known for her unusual use of dashes?
- Sylvia Plath
- Emily Dickinson
- Walt Whitman
- Robert Frost
Emily Dickinson wrote approximately 1,800 poems but published fewer than a dozen during her lifetime. She lived as a recluse in Amherst, Massachusetts, and her work was only properly published after her death. Her unconventional dashes, slant rhymes, and unconventional capitalization were so unusual her first editors 'corrected' them — ruining the effect. Restored texts show she was a radically experimental poet a century before it was fashionable.
6. What is 'iambic pentameter'?
- A type of rhyme scheme used in sonnets
- A poetic meter with five rhyming lines
- A rhythmic pattern of 10 syllables per line alternating unstressed and stressed syllables
- A Greek form with alternating long and short verses
Iambic pentameter — 'da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM' — mirrors natural English speech patterns, which is why it sounds so natural in Shakespeare. Shakespeare used it for aristocratic characters while giving prose to commoners. The most famous example is 'Shall I comPARE thee TO a SUM-mer's DAY?' — each stressed syllable lands naturally on important words.
7. Who wrote the poem 'The Road Not Taken,' often misquoted as a celebration of individualism?
- Edgar Allan Poe
- Carl Sandburg
- Robert Frost
- Walt Whitman
Robert Frost's 'The Road Not Taken' (1916) is widely misread as celebrating nonconformity — choosing the less-traveled path. Frost actually wrote it as a gentle mockery of his friend Edward Thomas, who agonized over every decision. The poem's speaker admits both paths were 'really about the same' — but will later tell the story differently. It's a poem about self-deception in hindsight, not bold individualism.
8. William McGonagall, considered the worst poet in the English language, was famous for writing about what catastrophe?
- The Great Fire of London
- The Black Plague
- The sinking of the Titanic
- The Tay Bridge Disaster
William McGonagall of Scotland wrote his most famous poem 'The Tay Bridge Disaster' about the 1879 collapse of the Tay Rail Bridge that killed 75 people. His poems are renowned for forced rhymes, metric disaster, and unintentional humor: 'Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay! / Alas! I am very sorry to say / That ninety lives have been taken away / On the last Sabbath day of 1879.' He is celebrated on Bad Poetry Day.
9. What is spoken word poetry or 'slam poetry'?
- Poetry that uses violent imagery
- Performance poetry judged in competition, often political and highly personal
- Poetry written to be slammed in a book
- A Victorian form of theatrical verse
Poetry slam was invented in Chicago in 1984 by construction worker Marc Kelley Smith, who wanted to return poetry to its roots as an oral, populist art form. Competitors deliver original poems to be judged by audience members. Poetry slam became a global movement, influencing hip-hop, spoken word, and Broadway (Hamilton's Lin-Manuel Miranda started in slam). The rules specify that no props or musical instruments are allowed.
10. What is an 'ode' in poetry?
- A formal lyric poem celebrating or meditating on a person, place, or abstract idea
- A short humorous poem in 4 lines
- A poem about death or mourning
- A poem with no rhyme scheme
Odes originated in ancient Greece — Pindar wrote victory odes for Olympic champions. Keats's great odes ('To a Nightingale,' 'On a Grecian Urn') are considered some of the finest poems in English. Pablo Neruda took the form to unexpected places — his 'Odes to Common Things' celebrated mundane objects like socks, tomatoes, and salt with the same reverence others gave gods and heroes.
11. Which famous Romantic poet died of tuberculosis at age 25, having achieved remarkable literary fame in a very short life?
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- John Keats
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Lord Byron
John Keats wrote some of English literature's most celebrated poems in only five productive years before dying of tuberculosis in Rome in 1821, aged 25. His most productive year — 1819 — produced 'Ode to a Nightingale,' 'Ode on a Grecian Urn,' 'La Belle Dame sans Merci,' and others. Keats requested his tombstone read 'Here lies one whose name was writ in water' — a self-assessment of how wrong he was about his legacy.
12. What is 'concrete poetry' (also called 'shape poetry' or 'visual poetry')?
- Poetry written on stone surfaces
- Poetry about urban environments and buildings
- Poetry where the visual arrangement of words forms shapes related to the content
- Poetry using only concrete nouns, no abstractions
Concrete poetry, which flourished in the 1950s–60s, makes the visual arrangement of text on the page as important as the words themselves. Lewis Carroll pioneered it with 'The Mouse's Tale' in Alice in Wonderland — a poem typeset in the shape of a mouse's tail. Today, digital tools have expanded the possibilities enormously, and concrete poetry blurs the line between poetry, graphic design, and visual art.
13. Which poet's 'The Waste Land' (1922) is often cited as one of the most important poems of the 20th century?
- Dylan Thomas
- W.B. Yeats
- Ezra Pound
- T.S. Eliot
T.S. Eliot's 'The Waste Land' was transformed during editing by Ezra Pound, who cut the original from roughly 800 lines to 434 — Eliot dedicated the published poem to Pound as 'il miglior fabbro' (the better craftsman). The poem is notoriously dense with allusions in multiple languages. When asked about its meaning, Eliot reportedly said he'd already forgotten and suggested readers make up their own.
14. What is a limerick?
- A long narrative poem from Ireland
- A poem written specifically about the Irish city of Limerick
- A five-line humorous poem with AABBA rhyme scheme
- A four-line verse used in folk songs
Limericks follow the AABBA rhyme scheme with distinctive galloping meter. Edward Lear popularized them in his 'Book of Nonsense' (1846). The origin of the name is disputed — Limerick, Ireland may be connected, but the first clear reference to the name 'limerick' for this form only appears in 1892. Most of the best limericks are unprintable in family settings.
15. In what country did the Nobel Prize in Literature go to a poet laureate who had never been published traditionally but went viral on TikTok?
- This has never happened
- United Kingdom
- Sweden
- United States
While TikTok poetry hasn't won a Nobel Prize yet, the platform has created extraordinary opportunities for poets to reach millions. Rupi Kaur, whose minimalist poems went viral on Instagram, became a global bestselling poet outside traditional publishing gatekeepers. Amanda Gorman became the youngest inaugural poet in US history at age 22 when she read at Biden's 2021 inauguration, demonstrating poetry's continued cultural power.