Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
Happy National Poetry Month! I can think of at least two reasons why April was chosen as National Poetry Month, both of them being famous poems. If people know any Middle English at all, they probably know some of the first lines of the Prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, a collection of stories presented in verse written at the end of the 14th century:
WHAN that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
And smale fowles maken melodye,
That slepen al the night with open ye,
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages:
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages.
Either this brings back memories, or it doesn’t, but if you were an English Major, you probably spent some time with these lines.
Some say that the beginning of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land is just as obscure as these from Chaucer, if somewhat less difficult for most of us to understand:
APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
There was a time when I had the whole of this poem’s 430 lines memorized, but now I just keep just enough Eliot catch-phrases in my head to add to an in-class discussion in one of my writing, literature, or creative writing classes. Eliot is one of the poets who inspired me to get into this poetry business.
I will have to include more Chaucer and Eliot on future Pub Quizzes, but for tonight, you should instead expect questions on Italian food, Tennessee, Greek heroes, declining industries, songs with numbers in them, your (for now) Sacramento Kings, internet culture, mollusks, Texas, unusual words that come up in Shakespeare, pop music, groundbreaking television, trenches, voyeurism, chemists, individual football players, Woodland, high temperatures, Washington, highways and byways, astronauts, Abraham Lincoln, Africa, hot people, oceans, politics and unwilling politicians, Major League Baseball, and Shakespeare. Fans of sports teams and figures, local history, and science (three science questions this week) will receive multiple high-fives while playing tonight’s edition of the Pub Quiz.
We sold out last week, so please call now to reserve your table. And if you are looking for a poetry reading (and who isn’t?), visit http://www.poetryindavis.com to see who will be reading at this coming Wednesday night at 8:30.
Your Quizmaster
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Friends of the Pub Quiz, and those curious about all the fun and fuss associated with the Pub Quiz, should come to de Vere’s Irish Pub in Davis (217 E Street), the highly esteemed pub and restaurant that fills up every night because of the superb quality of food, drink and company that can be found there. The de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz takes place every Monday at 7pm, though players are encouraged to arrive early to claim a table. As always, find out more about the Pub Quiz by visiting https://www.yourquizmaster.com. For more on de Vere’s Irish Pub, visit http://deverespub.com/.