"Task on Modern Poetry"

This blog is a part of my academic activity which was given to us in the paper of the Modernist literature.

Before moving towards this task, let’s have a brief look on the modernism and modernist poetry.

 

The word modernism is a very vague term, whose precise meanings are very hard to pin down. But it can be said that modernism was started at the end of 19^th century and reached its most radical peak on the eve of World War I.  As far as modernist poetry is concerned, it mainly started in a yearly year of 20^th century or refers to a poetry written between 1890 and 1950 in Europe and North America in the tradition of modernist literature. The common characteristic of this poetry is that, the poets wrote poems in the open form and free verse rather than to follow or write in the tradition form and meter of poetry. The modern poetry is also characterized by a stream of conscious, which mirrors thoughts of the poet pop into conscious mind out of the subconscious mind.

1) ''The Embankment''- T.E.Hulme

Once, in finesse of fiddles found I ecstasy, 

 flash of gold heels on the hard pavement. 

Now see I 

That warmth’s the very stuff of poesy. 

Oh, God, make small 

The old star-eaten blanket of the sky, 

That I may fold it round me and in comfort lie.

  In this poem we can find modern metaphors and symbols like, ‘fallen gentleman’, ‘finesse of fiddles’.This poem may be depicted the life of homeless people. The metaphor fallen gentleman reflect something which happen in past and it may also symbolize those who succumbed to sexual temptations and ruined his life emotionally and financially.

2) "Darkness"- by Joseph Campbell

I stop to watch a star shine in the boghole –

A star no longer, but a silver ribbon of light.

I look at it, and pass on.

  This short poem was written by Irish poet Joseph Campbell. In this poem also we can find a modern metaphors like ‘Boghole’ and ‘silver ribbion’. As a boghole refers to a kind of depression.

3) "Image"- by Edward Storer

"Forsaken lovers,

Burning to a chaste white moon

upon strange pyres of loneliness and drought".

   While talking about the matter of love, moon is symbolically used a s a tool which provides a calmness to lover. But here the poet used white moon as something which burs the lover rather than to provide them coolness. It reflects loneliness of people in Modern age.

                                 4)  “In a station of the Metro” – Ezra pound

          The apparition of these faces in the crowd:

           Petals on a wet, black bough.

   This is an imagist poem by Ezra pound and also considered to be the first haiku written in English, though it lacks the traditional structure of haiku.(Wikipedia). In the same way like a previous poem, this poem also speaks about the life of people in the station of metro. It also suggests about the hectic life of people. Here we find metaphors like petals in wet and black bough. By using this metaphor the poet describes the faces of an individuals in the metro. And this frame was best put into the poem not with a description but with the equation.  Physically all were presented there at metro station but mentally each and every person was isolated.

5)"The pool"- by Hilda Doolittle

"Are you alive?

I touched you

you quiver trembling like a sea fish

I cover you with my net

What are you banded one?

Hilda Doolittle was an American imagist poet. He believed that every word in a poem has to contribute to the presentation. The very first line of the poem questions to the existentialism. May be this poem is about the discovery of who or about the self discovery of poet herself. Here the metaphor sea fish is used for presenting the life modern people.

6) "Insouciance"- By Richard Aldington

"In and out of the dreary trenches

Trudging cheerily under the stars

I make for myself little poems

Delicate as a flock of dovesin 

Thy fly away like white-winged Doves.

Like the many other poem, this poem also speaks about the loneliness of people in modern time. Here the use of ‘dreary trenches’ reflects the gloominess in the the life of modern people or rather it describes the life of poet himself. It also shows the poet’s love for literature, here he used literature as a way of escapism. His trenches may be breathed out through the poem. Poem keeps him alive and happy. Thy fly away like white-winged Doves, this line helps us in understanding his perspective on the art.

7) “Morning at the Window”- T.S.Eliot

They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,

And along the trampled edges of the street

I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids

Sprouting despondently at area gates.

The brown waves of fog toss up to me

Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,

And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts

An aimless smile that hovers in the air

And vanishes along the level of the roofs.

This poem seems as the depiction of poverty and hardship of the people who are living city life in the slum area. The very first line of the poem suggests about how the day of poor people begin. The use of words like, trampled edges of the street gives us idea about the locality in which they were living. The use of realistic  images such as ‘brown waves’, ‘twisted faces’, ‘aimless smile’ and ‘muddy skirt’, give us an idea about the issues of poverty  and depression in the life of poor people.

8) "The Red wheelbarrow- William carols William

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens

Amongst  the imagist poem of twentieth century “The Red Wheelbarrow” is a well known imagist poem.Here in the poem we find a use of symbolism like ‘a red wheelborrow’ and ‘white chicken’,

which are associated with the field of agriculture or with the life of farmer. It may be spoken about the hardship of farmer. 

9) “Anecdote of the jar”-  Wallace Stevens

I placed a jar in Tennessee,   

And round it was, upon a hill.   

It made the slovenly wilderness   

Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,

And sprawled around, no longer wild.   

The jar was round upon the ground   

And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion everywhere.   

The jar was gray and bare.

It did not give of bird or bush,   

Like nothing else in Tennessee.

   This poem seems quite similar to the John Keat’s poem, “The Grecian Urn”. By exaggeration of the jar, or by placing the jar on the die of hill the poet provides a way to look at nature. This imaginative poem also mocks on the industrialization of  20^th century. The words grey and bare are used for industrialization which overcame the nature. And it would never provide a natural beauty.

10)   “ I” – E.E.Cummings

“A leaf falls with loneliness”

   This can be read through various perspective. The poem is very short but it still leaves a many  messages. I believe that, this speaks about the loneliness of the people in modern world. As the leaf was fallen, it also symbolize the death or  the loneliness of people who living along in the crowd.