Edward M. Bury

Post modern poets furiously discarded many established literary conventions and relied more on a narrative technique to distance their work from the philosophical and intellectual enlightened movement and the Modernist movement that followed. For the uninitiated, these poetic works could prove intimidating, confusing and even non-nonsensical.  I can speak from personal experience, as a wide spectrum of post modern and contemporary poetry was the center of the ENGL 540: Seminar in Modern and Contemporary Literature, the fourth course in my quest to earn my Master’s degree in English. To complete my course requirements, I had to build a thesis on the works assigned, draft an abstract, and of course, research and write a paper (this time complete with an annotated bibliography.)  My paper was centered on the contention by some modern black poets that the concept of “blackness” has become a commodity today. A work by poet and writer Douglas Kearney was examined. The paper, The Commodification of “Blackness” and Poetry Presented as Propaganda, proved challenging; but I gained a much better understanding on the direction literature had made.