Modernist Movement Poetry

Modernist poetry puts emphasis on traditional formalism and diction. Most early modern poetry takes the form of short compact lyrics. It has two main features the first one being technical innovation through the extensive use of free verse and the second a move away from the romantic idea of an unproblematic poetic "self" directly addressing an equally unproblematic ideal reader or audience. The questioning of the self and the exploration of technical innovations in modernist poetry are intimately interconnected. Collage, found poetry, and visual poetry are used so the reader's mind can open up to questions regaurding the nature of the poetic experience and not be influenced by the author. Another important feature of much modernist poetry in English is a clear focus on the surface of the poem. Much of this focuses on the literal meaning of the words on the page rather than any metaphorical or symbolic meanings that might be imputed to them.

Authors:
Ezra Pound
T.S. Eliot
William Carlos Williams
Walt Whitman
Oscar Wilde
Robert Browning
Emily Dickinson
Gerald Manley Hopkins
A.E. Housman
E.E. Cummings
Robert Frost
Sylvia Plath

"Funeral Blues" or "Stop All the Clocks" by W.H. Auden