This historical event is the subject of Natasha Trethewey’s poem “Vantage,” which supposes that it occurred on a day when she and her “dark-skinned grandmother” went downtown “without armor.” For 10 points each:
[10h] Name this historical event that titles a spoken word poem on the album Small Talk at 125th and Lenox. That poem contrasts this event with stark realities like “a rat done bit my sister Nell” and “I can’t pay no doctor’s bills.”
ANSWER: the moon landing [or Apollo 11; accept descriptions of walking on the moon or equivalents; accept “Whitey on the Moon”; prompt on the Space Race or the Apollo program] (“Whitey on the Moon” is by Gil Scott-Heron.)
[10m] The New York Times commissioned this poet’s “Voyage to the Moon” to accompany its front page story on the landing. This poet of “You, Andrew Marvell” wrote that “A poem should not mean but be” in “Ars Poetica.”
ANSWER: Archibald MacLeish
[10e] This poet of “Funeral Blues” and “September 1, 1939” mocked the achievement as a “phallic triumph” in his poem “Moon Landing.”
ANSWER: W. H. Auden [or Wystan Hugh Auden]
<TM, American Literature>