From everything I could find it was Carl himself, But if you heard the poem online somewhere it could've been anywhere. Where did you hear it?
It is false that academic arguments should be written in first-person perspective. Nothing should be written in first-person perspective when it comes to academic writing.
The correct answer is the second option - <span>to occur unexpectedly and have destructive or harmful effects.
</span>Here, the word struck is just a past form of the verb to strike, meaning to happen unexpectedly and have dire consequences, like an earthquake can hit California, in this case. The final definition is a noun, and does not fit in the context of the original sentence.
