According to Robert Ray, ‘the single most important thing about postmodernism: unlike impressionism, cubism, expressionism and even modernism; it cannot best be understood as simply another movement of arts. Thus, the standard typological moves of literary criticism do not work very well to distinguish postmodernism from its predecessors’. It is entirely a new concept which is very different from modernism. But, postmodern poetry attempts to some extent to justify the temperament of the moderns. The idea of poetic sensibility and poetic freedom are appreciated in postmodern poetry. As we all are aware of the important poets of this era, we don’t need more discussion regarding this topic. In this article, we would like to focus on some names that are not that famous but still have contributions in postmodern literature.
Around the year 1960, a wave of pop poetry flourished a lot and writers like Roger McGough, Brian Patten and Adrian Henri, all from Liverpool were the prime contributors of this type of verse. They used to use language, imagery and contemporary reference to make the poetry more enjoyable for the readers but however, they were not taken seriously by the critics. So, let’s know about them in detail –
Roger McGough
He still continues to be one of the popular poets of postmodernism. He is not only a poet but a broadcaster, children's author and a playwright. He presented the programme, Poetry Please at BBC Radio 4 and performed his own poetry as well. He also wrote a number of significant volumes which include Defying Gravity (1992), Bad Cats (1997) and so on. His most recent collection includes The Way Things Are (1999).
Peter Reading (1946-2011)
He is one of the minor poets, who is very much original and the most politically concerned poet among the others. He is the founder of a different kind of poetry called the ‘found’ poetry, in which he uses the texts which he has found as graffiti, slogans, conversations etc. Reading involved himself in serious writing as well. For example we can talk about the volume C (1984) which deals with cancer. His other important volumes include Municipality’s Elderly (1974), Fiction (1979), Final Demands (1988) and Work in Regress (1997). The last one can be considered as found poetry as he takes the inspiration from Tony Blair’s statement, who was the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Lastly, we want to end the discussion with some famous lines of Peter Reading –
‘There is no posterity to write for. I’m writing now for mutated arthropods’.
