Of Modern Poetry Essay Questions

"Of Modern Poetry" is full of instructions on what modern poetry must be and do. What can we infer from these instructions about what the life of a modern poet should be like, in order to produce such poetry?

Stevens emphasizes poetry's need to be grounded in the real world and current time: "learn the speech of the place...face the men of the time and to meet / The women of the time. It has to think about war..." We can infer that a poet able to write about the people and events around himself must be socially engaged, aware of his society, or at least not a recluse. The poet also needs to be aware of poetry's history to understand the need for modern poetry as a new form, the need to "construct a new stage." In the image of the actor, Stevens also implies that poets must be careful and deliberate so that the poetry can speak "slowly and / With meditation."

Over the course of this poem, how does Stevens vary sentence length and complexity, and how does he use form? What purpose do these devices serve?

Stevens wrote "Of Modern Poetry" in free verse, with no fixed meter or rhyme, in order to demonstrate that a simple form can still convey a powerful meaning, as was one of the projects of Modernism—like the metaphysician "twanging a wiry string." He begins and ends with simple, straightforward sentences in order to lay out clear rules for poetry and to create the tone of an artistic manual or manifesto. In the two long and complex sentences in the middle of the poem, Stevens ventures into metaphorical descriptions of the interactions between a poem and its audiences, which serve as a possible example for the rules that make up the rest of the poem.

Why does Stevens talk about poetry by using the language and terms of theater?

Compared to poetry, theater is more of a public, verbal and physical art form. It would be easier for readers to imagine the physical space of a stage as a symbol for the world of poetry, and to imagine a poem as a living performer speaking words into its listeners' ears. In other words, theater acts as a convenient metaphor for poetry because it helps show poetry's ability to speak out to society and real people in the audience.

What kind of meaning and satisfaction should audiences get from the ideal modern poem described here?

The middle of the poem claims that poetry should tell an audience "exactly, that which it wants to hear"—which would seem to indicate that poetry should find a way to please everyone. Stevens goes on to explain that the goal is for audiences to express emotion together, for poetry to give "sudden rightnesses" to things around it, and for people to find "satisfaction." So, we can infer that poetry must have something in it for everyone—something to move them and help them make sense of the world. This type of meaning can vary from person to person: the satisfaction "may / Be" one of many forms, exemplified by the three people and actions Stevens mentions in the last two lines.

How does Stevens use word and phrase repetition in this poem?

There are many pieces in this poem that repeat or cycle through several times: most notable is the sentence-opener phrase "It has to," offering the many commands for modern poetry. The effect of this anaphora is to firmly establish a pedantic tone, and not lose the poem's focus, which is on setting rules for poetry. There are many more points of repetition, however—"of the time" in lines 7-8, "new stage" and "that stage," "the ear" and "the delicatest ear," among many others—such that the poem often feels slow and methodical, as it makes a point and then pauses to slightly rephrase that same point. This technique mimics that of a lesson, and also makes evident the careful craft that poets must take in writing meaningful work.