Diction and Meter:

Diction and Meter:
This movement has also revolutionized the concept of poetic diction and metre Traditional “Poetic diction”, saccharine poeticism, and even regular metre have been discarded almost completely. As Moody and Lovett point our, “Imagism did modern poetry a tremendous service by pointing the way to renovation of the vocabulary of poetry.

In the 20th century many experiments have been made on the techniques and diction of poetry. Doughty for example, as Grierson and Smith put it, “Manhandled” English. The American poet Cummings refused to start every line of his poetry with a capital letter, land so on. Many of such experiments have been interesting but interesting only.

Complexity and Psychology:

Complexity and Psychology are some other qualities of the more representative poetry of today. The reaction against the earlier naiveté of poetry was initiated by Eliot and Ezra Pound in the second decade of the present century. Eliot’s long poem The Waste land (1922) was the first example of the poetry, and it remains a watershed in both English and American literary history.

Conclusion:

Poetry is a criticism of life. It must maintain its contact with life. Modern poetry is the reflection of modern life. It is realistic in tone and expresses the spirit of the age. It cannot denounce as petty, wayward and puerile. It can safely take its place f pride in the kingdom of poetry produced from the times of Chaucer to the modern times.