Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
I got to meet the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet W.S. Merwin only once, about 15 years ago, when he came to UC Davis to give a talk about the practice of translation. I knew Merwin’s poetry well, for he had appeared in just about every important anthology of American poetry published in the previous 40 years, and one of my English Department colleagues had chosen Merwin as the single-author subject of his dissertation. He was a prodigious author. Perhaps inspired by his early friendships with poets such as Robert Graves, Ted Hughes, and Sylvia Plath, Merwin had published more than 50 books of poetry and prose, averaging a book a year for most of his adult life.
I also knew Merwin as a nature and conservation activist, rooted especially in the beauty and biodiversity of his adopted home state of Hawaii. To this day, the Merwin Conservancy “maintains the [Merwin] house and palm forest [that he planted] as a place of stillness and reflection for retreat, study, and contemplation through a residency program for creative visionaries and thought leaders from Hawaii and across the world.
Friday at a pub quiz fundraiser for Davis Sunrise Rotary, on the day W.S. Merwin died, March 15th, I unleashed a particularly difficult anagram. Here it is.
“One of America’s greatest poets, W.S. Merwin, died today at the age of 91. The three-word title of Merwin’s second book featured animals, and was an anagram of the unusual phrase BAD INTERCHANGES. What was the title of that book?”
One team bought a hint to the anagram question, learning that the animals in questions were BEARS. Can you figure out the answer?
Two poems come to mind first when I think of Merwin. One was perhaps his shortest, a verse that I sent to Kate in 1989 when she lived a great distance from me. It is titled “Separation.”
Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.
The second poem is perhaps Merwin’s most anthologized, the one that many had prepared to share on social media when his last day was finally announced. It is titled “For the Anniversary of My Death”:
Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveler
Like the beam of a lightless star
Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And bowing not knowing to what
I tip my hat to the great poet, the second of the world’s most famous poets writing in English to have died in the last six months (the other being Mary Oliver). Please consider spending some time with the work of this mindful and accomplished writer.
Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on issues raised above, and on the following: rides, spring break plans, hunky princes, people named Spiegel, cups, the slow absence of oxygen, successful musicians, starting and finishing with the letter A, valuations, urban development, plural nouns, famous boulevards, billionaire siblings, sports awards, frontmen, Davis businesses, seeds, Florida vacation homes, bird songs, big books, syndromes in the news, servers, Howard and Stanford, islands, three meanings of a single date, trains that are out of control, Scandinavia, piranha that travel via jet aircraft, spelling for a long time, weapons, soft-offs, peace in name only, American royalty, little dancers, southern states, and Shakespeare.
Poetry Night is Thursday night at 8 at the Natsoulas Gallery. I hope you will join us!
Your Quizmaster
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Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:
- Famous Ships. What was the name of Ernest Shackleton’s ship which became stuck in Antarctic ice in 1915?
- Pioneers in the mass production of tires. In what year was the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company founded? Was it 1880, 1900, 1920, or 1940?
- Sports. Two NBA basketball teams currently have a better record than the Golden State Warriors. Name one of them.
P.S. “Poetry and beauty are always making peace. When you read something beautiful you find coexistence; it breaks walls down.” —Mahmoud Darwish