Modernist Poetry

For many, high modernism is perhaps best characterized by the emergence of a new kind of poetry. The battle cry of the modernists—"make it new"—is reflected in the experimental, difficult, highly allusive nature of much of the poetry written during this time. Below is a representative selection of such verse.

H. D.

• Sea Garden

• • Sea Rose   (annotated)
  • The Helmsman
  • The Shrine
  • Mid-Day
  • Pursuit
  • The Contest
  • Sea Lily
  • The Wind Sleepers
  • The Gift
  • Evening
  • Sheltered Garden
  • Sea Poppies

 

T.S. Eliot

• Prufrock and Other Observations

• • The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock   (annotated)
  • Portrait of a Lady
  • Preludes
  • Rhapsody on a Windy Night
  • Morning at the Window
  • The Boston Evening Transcript
  • Aunt Helen
  • Cousin Nancy
  • Mr. Apollinax
  • Hysteria
  • Conversation Galante
  • La Figlia che Piange

• Poems

• • Gerontion
  • Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar   (annotation in progress)
  • Sweeney Erect

• The Waste Land

• • Epigraph and Dedication   (annotated)
  • I. The Burial of the Dead   (annotated)
  • II. A Game of Chess   (annotated)
  • III. The Fire Sermon   (annotation in progress)
  • IV. Death By Water
  • V. What the Thunder Said
  • Notes

 

Ford Madox Ford

• Miscellaneous Poems

• • Antwerp, 1917

 

James Joyce

• Miscellaneous Poems

• • A Flower for my Daughter, 1917
  • A Memory of the Players in the Mirror at Midnight, 1917

 

Ezra Pound

• Personæ (1909)

• • Grace Before Song
  • Masks
  • Xenia

• Ur-Cantos

• • Canto I   (annotation in progress)
  • Canto II   (annotation in progress)
  • Canto III   (annotation in progress)

• Homage to Sextus Propertius (from Poetry 1919)

• • Homage to Sextus Propertius I
  • Homage to Sextus Propertius II
  • Homage to Sextus Propertius III

• Hugh Selwyn Mauberly

• • Ode pour l'election de son sepulchre   (annotated)
  • Envoi
  • (Mauberley)

• Four Cantos

• • The Fourth Canto   (annotation in progress)
  • The Fifth Canto   (annotation in progress)
  • The Sixth Canto
  • The Seventh Canto

• Homage to Sextus Propertius

• • Homage to Sextus Propertius I
  • Homage to Sextus Propertius II
  • Homage to Sextus Propertius III
  • Homage to Sextus Propertius IV
  • Homage to Sextus Propertius V
  • Homage to Sextus Propertius VI
  • Homage to Sextus Propertius VII
  • Homage to Sextus Propertius VIII
  • Homage to Sextus Propertius IX
  • Homage to Sextus Propertius X

• Personæ (1926)

• • The Tree
  • Threnos
  • La Fraisne
  • Cino
  • Na Audiart
  • Villonaud for This Yule
  • A Villonaud: Ballad Of The Gibbet
  • Mesmerism
  • Famam Librosque Cano
  • Praise of Ysolt

• Miscellaneous Poems

• • In a Station of the Metro, 1913

 

William Butler Yeats

• Responsibilities and Other Poems

• • A Coat
  • A Drinking Song
  • A Friend's Illness
  • A Memory of Youth

• The Wild Swans at Coole

• • A Deep-sworn Vow
  • An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
  • Another Song of a Fool
  • A Prayer on going into my House
  • A Song

• Miscellaneous Poems

• • When You are Old, 1901
  • The Second Coming, 1921
  • Leda and the Swan, 1924
  • Sailing to Byzantium, 1928