Valentine's Day Pop Quiz

Rev up for Valentine's Day with some romantic poetry.  Just for fun: Who penned the following love-ly rhymes?  (Answers appear at the bottom.)

Swing by the library any day of the year for works by major British and American poets, including contemporary writers, Billy Collins, Mary Oliver, Rita Dove, Nikki Giovanni, Charles Simic, Norbert Krapf, Eduardo Corral and more.

  

                         1.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
     Admit impediments.  Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
    Or bends with the remover to remove:

                         2.
To make a perfect heart you take a sheet
of red construction paper of the type
that’s rough as a cat’s tongue . . .

                         3.       
I will not play at tug o' war.
I'd rather play at hug o' war,
Where everyone hugs
Instead of tugs,
Where everyone giggles
And rolls on the rug,
Where everyone kisses,
And everyone grins,
And everyone cuddles,
And everyone wins.

                         4.        

How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach . . .

                         5.
You sing, and your voice peels the husk
of the day's grain, your song with the sun and sky,
the pine trees speak with their green tongue:
all the birds of the winter whistle.

Answers:   1 – William Shakespeare, Sonnet CXVI ; 2 – Ted Kooser, A Perfect Heart in Valentines;  3 – Shel Silverstein, Hug O' War in Where the Sidewalk Ends;  4 – Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnet XLIII in Sonnets from the Portuguese;  5 –  Pablo Neruda, Sonnet LII in 100 Love Sonnets

Scoring: 1 correct answer = Kid Prufrock; 2 = Miles-to-go Standish; 3 = Pepe le Poet; 4 = Call Me Cupid (maybe); 5 = Don Juan Unchained

Happy Valentine's Day!