Postmodern poetry

http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/Literary_Criticism/postmodernism/pm_poetry.html

Postmodern Poetry

“Superior Lake” by Lorine Niedecker as an Example

• Conte, Joseph M. Unending Design: the Form of Postmodern Poetry. Introduction.
• McCorkle, James. ¡§The Inscription of Postmodernism in Poetry.¡¨

Taiwanese Postmodern Poetry (an Outline in Chinese)

Postmodern poetics respond to the condition of the world. In an age of instant telecommunications and metropolitan life, the postmodern serial and procedural forms attempt to accommodate the overwhelming diversity of messages and the lapse of a grand order that is replaced by an arbitrary personal order.

I. Language

A.  In postmodern poetics, there is a paradigmatic shift from the idea that language is
transparent to the disclosure of its physicality, its intimacy, its obdurate persistence, and its
paradoxical fragility. (M 43)

B. Reader¡Xpoem:

The reader’s position is contingent upon the poem and the poem¡¦s existence hinges upon
the reader and the varieties of knowledge the reader brings to the poem¡KThe adequation of
thing and sign has lapsed with the realization of the arbitrary condition of language. (M 43)

II. Self

A. Contemporary poetry:

1. Contemporary poetry positions its perspectives from a persona (who is often autobiographic) within a defined narrative structure.
2. Contemporary poetry avoids self-criticism and establishes itself as a singled unified voice. (M 48)

B. Postmodern poetry:

1. Postmodernist poetics suggests an ongoing reinterpretation of the self in the context of others. It specifically investigates the ethical-or self-critical capacity of language and its relationship to identity. (M 46)2. The critique of the privileged and entitled ¡§I¡¨ is central to postmodern poetics. While not a wholesale endorsement of many theoretic claims to he death of the author or the abandonment of intention, postmodern poetry nonetheless insists on a re-visioning of the authorial voice and its reception. (M 46)

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