short modernist poetry
1)
Once, in finesse of fiddles found I ecstasy,
In a 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.
First, a short paraphrase of the poem: on London’s Embankment (an area well-known for homeless people sleeping rough), a ‘fallen gentleman’ reflects on his past and how he found pleasure in worldly social activities (the ‘finesse of fiddles’ suggesting musical gatherings, such as dances) and beautiful women – probably (given the ‘flash of gold heels on the hard pavement‘) courtesans or prostitutes. But now, down on his luck and most probably sleeping rough on the streets, he realises that warmth is what really matters and is what poets should be singing about. The poem then ends with a heartfelt entreaty to the heavens, with the poem’s speaker beseeching God to make a blanket of the starry sky so that the speaker’s wish for warmth might be granted
2). Darkness.
Darkness.
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.
In this poem we find night as a symbol of darkness and silver ribbon as a symbol of light or we can say brightness.
3)Forsaken lovers,
Burning to a chance white moon,
Upon strange pyres of loneliness and drought.
Here in the poem depiction of forsaken lover is described. Though there is a white moon in the sky but the loneliness and drought are there in lover’s heart. The feelings are there in between lovers. Though there is white moon and it stands for peace. But the heart of lover’s are burning.
4) "In a station of the Metro"- Ezra Pound
The apparition of these faces in the
Crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough
Ezra Pound described Metro station and people who are on this station. She says that how we become puppets of feeling less life. It talks about the repetitive life of modern people like a living dead.
5) 'The Pool' - Hilda Doolittle
Are you alive?
I touch you
You quiver trembling like a sea-fish
I cover you with my net
What are you- banded one?
Here I can read the sarcasm. Its about overpowering or colonising someone. First it was asked that are you alive or not. Very sarcastically, we can see that no. It is not alive. Because now it is there in the net of somebody. Fish after going in the net, cannot survive for longer.
6) "Insouciance" – 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 doves
They fly away like white-winged
Doves.
--In this poem, poet compares his poems with dove. It flies far away from himself and at last, it becomes difficult to say that it was mine.
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 housemaid
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.
-- The picture is that of a morning . T. S. Eloit is writing the poem from the point of the housemaid who is constantly engaged with lots of work.
8) “The Red Wheelbarrow”
is perhaps one of the shortest serious poems ever published by an American poet. The structure is rigidly formal. The poem consists of four miniature stanzas of four words each.
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
Three images are involved: the wheelbarrow, described simply as red, the qualifying adjectival phrase “glazed with rain/ water,” which relieves the excessive severity of the second stanza, and the contrasting white chickens of the final stanza. The first line is colloquial and open in its invitation; the second line, the preposition “upon,” prepares the reader for the specifics to follow. Each two-line stanza has two stressed syllables in the first line and one in the second, and yet there is lively variation in where the stresses fall.
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.
The poem is about the control over civilization of a state or a place. Here poet discussed about the state “Tennessee” in United States of America. In this poem poet placed a jar on the hill. After some time jar at hill owns the place slowly and steadily. Through this line poet wants to say that how an outsider comes as different place and owns that place or we can say that an outsider made its place on that place slowly and steadily. There is one word “wilderness” which represents the unsettled way of an outsider. There is a phrase “sprawled outsider” which means to spread out in a disorderly fashion.
10.) ‘l (a‘- E. E. Cummings
l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness
The title of the poem “A leaf falls on loneliness” shows itself the state of being alone and solitude. There is a word “fall” which represents the state of dullness. It can be fall of civilization, individual’s hope or fall of anything else. If a leaf falls from tree then the fallen leaf become lonely. In Modernist Literature we can see fall of spirituality and also fall of hope. Loneliness represents the separation from the entire world. So here we can say that this poem represents the state of separation from the entire world and also represents the state of self contentedness.
Thank you....
