The month of April is National Poetry Month. In recognition of the importance of poetry in our lives, here is another quiz dealing with opening lines — this time from poems. Can you come up with the poem and the poet for each one?
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked…”
“I am waiting for my case to come up / and I am waiting / for a rebirth of wonder…”
“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall…”
“I celebrate myself, and sing myself, / And what I assume you shall assume, / For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”
“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary…”
“I thank You God for most this amazing / day:for the leaping greenly spirit of trees / and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes”
“Because I could not stop for Death / He kindly stopped for me.”
“When day comes we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?”
“In the burned house I am eating breakfast. / You understand: there is no house, there is no breakfast, / yet here I am.”
“Out of the hills of Habersham, / Down the valleys of Hall / I hurry amain to reach the plan, / Run the rapid and leap the fall…”
“Laugh, and the world laughs with you; / Weep and you weep alone.”
“Out of the night that covers me, / Black and the pit from pole to pole / I thank whatever gods may be / For my unconquerable soul.”
“Father calls me William, sister calls me Will, / Mother calls me Willie, but the fellers call me Bill!”
“‘Will you walk into my parlor?’ said the spider to the fly…”
“April is the cruellest month, breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing / Memory and desire, stirring / Dull roots with spring rain.”
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”
“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, / With conquering limbs astride from land to land…”
“You may write me down in history / With your bitter, twisted lies…”
“What happens to a dream deferred?”
“Drink to me only with thine eyes, / And I will pledge with mine…”