INTRODUCTION

The period of poetry that followed the Victorian era is the Modern poetry. It is usually associated
and classified with the 20th century. It spans from about 1901-1950. Although, some classify it as
from 1890-1950. This period witnessed two world wars, creating a reason and a wide range of
subjects for poets to write about. In every way, this era made intentional efforts to deviate from
the norm of the immediate era and that it did. This paper will be highlighting some of its prominent
features and highlighting these features through the use of two modern poems. Some of its
characteristic features are;

Adoption of free/open verse form for writing.

Elements of Intertextuality.

It is impersonal and anti romantic.

It constitutes a wide range of subjects, theme and issues.

One poem, many themes.

In its poems, there is a revelation and exposure of some fragmented fractures of the presiding
society.

Its poetry is full of stylistic experimentation.

One of the features of modern poetry is its employment of open/free verse form in the writing of
poems. Free verse is a poetic style or form that has no rhyme scheme or a particular regular meter.
When this literary device is used, the poem has no rhyme scheme as in, [ab ab, abc abc...]. It is
important to note that these poets wanted to deviate from the preceding era in both content and
form, and the adoption of free/open verse form was a start. So, the poems do not have a pattern of
rhyme in them. This can be seen through the analysis of William Butler Yeates' The Rose Tree.
For example,

O words are lightly spoken,

Said Peares to Connolly

Maybe a breath of polite words...

You can also find this in Richard Le Gallene's Regret.

One ask of regret,

And I made a reply;

To have held the bird...

When an analysis of these modern poems is done, we can come to a conclusion that the subjects
of these poems are on a wide range scale. These poets write on almost anything and considering
their experiences during the era, a wide range of subjects for their poems was inevitable. One thing,
however, is certain, the subjects always have something to do with the presiding society. An
example of this is T.S.Eliot's Hollow Men. We can see in the poem that T. S. Eliot laments on the
moral decadence of his society as a result of the arrival of modern science. Some argue that
spirituality is the center of this poem and T. S. Eliot advises and explains the existence of an
afterlife, death’s other kingdom, and that everything, every desire here on earth is pointless because
death awaits everyman. So, the size and abundance of wealth is futile when the end result is death.

As said earlier, the modernist poets make use of intertextuality; making references from other
sources or texts to support a claim or emphasize a point. In a poem like The Hollow Men by T.S.
Eliot, it is acclaimed that he made use of intertextuality, and some of his references include, Dante's
Divine comedy, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Conrad's Heart of Darkness and many others. We
can see in this poem, from the first line, a reference to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, when
the poem reads,

Mista Kurtz---he dead.

Even in the second stanza, he makes a reference to Dante's Divine Comedy when he says eyes. The
eyes of Dante's character in his work Beatrice and Christ's mother, Mary.

In conclusion, just like other eras of poetry, we see that there is some conventional similarity
between all the poems. The modern poetry did not disappoint. It is very necessary to note that this
era was an era of great experimentation.

REFERENCES
 Eliot, T. S. 'The Hollow Men. 1925.

 Galliene, R. L. 'Regret'. 1892.

 Yeates, W. B. 'The Rose Tree. 1893.