Poets and the Nobel Prize

Last week American poet Louise Gluck was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Given that poets tend to be named only once every few years, I have zeroed in on poetry and the Nobel Prize. All the questions are based on Nobel winning poets or poems written by laureates. In keeping with the thrust of Geopolitico, the questions are more political than literary. Interestingly, a significant proportion of Nobel winning poets have been diplomats for their countries.

1) While he was Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson began reciting this poem by a Nobel laureate at a most inappropriate location.

“For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:
Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to ————-

With a terse British ambassador warning him to stop, Johnson did not get to the controversial

“Bloomin' idol made o' mud
Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd”

Name the Nobel laureate, the poem (name of a former capital) and the location where Johnson began reciting the poem.

2) Who is the Nobel laureate (and the only person) to have written the national anthems of two different countries? Name the literary icon and the two countries.

3) This poet was the first from her continent to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. From her thirties, she spent her life outside her country in various diplomatic positions. She was featured on the country's highest denomination currency note by a dictator, who packaged her as symbol of conservative morality. Name the poet and country.

(Hint: She took her pseudonym from an angel and the name of a wind that blows over the south of France)

4) While a schoolboy, this future poet was encouraged by the Nobel laureate in Question 3, who was then a school principal. She introduced him to Russian classics (Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Chekhov). Just like her, he too worked as a diplomat and both were posted in Spain during the 1930s. His efforts ensured a place in his country for hundreds of refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War. While cancer was reported to be the cause of his death, investigations over the past decade have raised questions. Who?

5) He was associated with nationalistic forces in his soon-to-be country, which is reflected in some of his popular poems. Later he toyed with fascism and eugenics, attempting to write marching songs for the fascist Blueshirts in his country. At one point he expressed admiration for Benito Mussolini (he did not fully embrace fascism however). Name the poet and country.

6) 1963 Nobel laureate George Seferis served as his country’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1962 and played a major role in talks that led to the independence of another country in 1960 (some of his acclaimed poems are about this island). In 1969 he spoke out on the BBC World Service against the military rulers in his country, saying “This anomaly must stop”. Name Seferis’ country as well as the country he helped secure independence.

7) This poet was a diplomat for his country and was first posted to India in 1952. He returned in 1962 to serve as Ambassador for six years. He wrote extensively about India and especially Delhi, describing a monument there as a ‘poem made not of words but of trees, pools, avenues of sand and flowers’. He resigned in protest in 1968 following a student massacre back home. Name the poet, his country, the monument in Delhi and the massacre that prompted his resignation.

8) This Nobel laureate wrote a collection of experimental poetry and prose in 1966 called Tarantula. But it was published only in 1971 and was widely panned as incomprehensible and pretentious. (In recent years there have been more efforts in defence of this work). Name the author.

9) This 1960 Nobel laureate’s poems were published under the pseudonym Saint-John Perse. His real name was Alexis Leger and he was for a time the top official in his country’s foreign ministry. Leger was the top aide to the country’s Prime Minister for talks that ended in a notorious pact in the 1930s. Name the poet-diplomat’s country and the agreement (Leger’s citizenship was revoked in 1940 and he spent years in exile in the U.S.)

10) Nobel laureate Ivo Andric started his literary career as a poet. In his early twenties he was involved with the ‘Young Bosnia’ nationalist movement along with A, who was junior to him at school. Following a crucial step taken by A in 1914, Ivo Andric was arrested and spent three years in prison. Who is A? (Ivo Andric later became a diplomat for Yugoslavia in the inter-war years and was the Ambassador in Berlin in 1941 when Yugoslavia was swallowed up by the Nazis)

11) X is a poet whose best known work was inspired by the ancient Greek poet Homer. Fellow Nobel laureate Y is a literary giant from the same region as X and both were locked in a bitter feud for decades. X directly attacked Y in verse in his 2008 poem ‘The Mongoose’, starting with the lines 'I have been bitten, I must avoid infection/Or else I'll be as dead as ————-’s fiction.' Name X and Y

Hint: Mongoose is an animal imported to the writers’ region from India

12) This poem by Polish Nobel laureate Wisława Szymborska was read out at multiple science-related protests against President Donald Trump and his policies.

“The admirable —————-
three point one four one.
All the following digits are also initial,
five nine two because it never ends.”

What is the poem all about?

13) During his convention speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination Joe Biden quoted from a Nobel laureate’s poem

“History says, Don’t hope / On this side of the grave. / But then, once in a lifetime / The longed-for tidal wave / Of justice can rise up / And hope and history rhyme.”

These lines were also quoted by then U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1995, during a visit to the poet’s region, in a speech with significant political consequences. Name the poet and his region.

14) This Nobel laureate in his acceptance speech spoke about his satirical response in verse to South Africa’s apartheid government comparing Nelson Mandela’s imprisonment to that of Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hess.

“Got you! Trust the Israelis/I bet they flushed him out, raced him down/ From Auschwitz to Durban, and Robben Island/ Mandela? Mandel ... Mendel ... Mengel ... Mengele!/ It’s he! Nazi superman in sneaky ————- !

Name the poet and fill in the missing word in the extract from the poem

NB: Answers are encouraged in the comments section/replies to subscriber email