Group items tagged

The article "Postmodernism in Poetry" starts off by giving you a little history of the idea of postmodernism as applied to poetry by saying that it began in the sixties, when there developed on both sides of the Atlantic a feeling that poetry had become too ossified, backward-looking and restrained. Next, the article delves into the 4 characteristics of postmodernism which the author feels are most relevant to poetry, iconoclasm, groundlessness, formlessness, and populism. Finally, a very detailed explanation as to why all four of these characteristics are important for poetry is given. At the very end, a list of about 15 authors who are considered to be postmodern poets is given. Personally, I feel that this is very important because it is hard to determine what is or isn't postmodern, so having a list of authors is helpful for someone who wants to be sure that they are reading postmodern poetry.

This article goes into detail regarding Post Modern thought in Poetry. Citing a backlash of the overly-processed, restrained poetry dating before the 1960s, Post Modern poetry was a backlash. Post Modernity has little to no boundaries, it makes sense to see it occur in Poetry, which also can come in many different forms. Poetry can be extremely structured or rambling and incoherent. It is described as "free-wheeling creations constructed of a language that largely points to itself." There are four aspects of Post Modern Poetry listed within. Iconoclasm, groundlessness, formlessness and populism. A sub-category under Iconoclasm would be "contradicts the expected, often deliberately alienating the reader." Nothing better than feeling alienated when one is reading what is written to be read. Also "subverts its sources by parody, irony and pastiche" and "denounces ethnic, gender and cultural repression." Groundlessness includes "regards both art and life as fictions, sometimes mixing the two in magic realism or multiple endings" and "argues that meaning is indeterminate, denying a final or preferred interpretation." Many scholars would love the idea of multiple endings, while getting headaches from the fact that there may not being one single interpretation. Formlessness includes aspects of poetry that have been seen many times lately, "fragments texts, turning them into collages or montages." Populism is what makes these forms appealing to the masses. These poems reject elite thoughts, and often focus on ideas that go across a wide spectrum. It "avoids the serious and responsible, promoting the arbitrary and playful."

The Longest Poem in the World, written by everyone using the social networking service Twitter, is a project conceived by Andrei Gheorghe. The site "aggregat[es] real-time public twitter updates and selecting those that rhyme", even selecting for nontraditional spelling and dialectal rhyme. The emphasis on user-generated content, the fragmentation of a thousand users randomly (and unknowingly, and anonymously) taking part in a project, and the playful nature with which it addresses the traditional form of poetry are all strong evidence of its postmodern nature.