Modern American Poetry Flashcards

Grade 11 · English · Flashcards

Key poets, movements, terms, and works that define Modern American Poetry from Imagism through Confessionalism and beyond.

Flashcards

Imagism

Early 20th-century movement (c.1912) championing precise concrete images, free verse, and no wasted words; founded by Ezra Pound and H.D.

Free Verse

Poetry without fixed meter or rhyme scheme; relies on natural speech rhythms, repetition, and line breaks; the dominant form in modern American poetry

T.S. Eliot

Anglo-American modernist; 'Prufrock' (1915) and 'The Waste Land' (1922) are defining modernist texts; won Nobel Prize in Literature 1948

Ezra Pound

Modernist poet and movement catalyst; championed Imagism, edited 'The Waste Land'; his 'Make it new' mantra defined modernist ambition

William Carlos Williams

American modernist who used plain American speech; 'The Red Wheelbarrow' and 'This Is Just to Say' celebrate ordinary things with precise attention

Robert Frost

New England poet who used traditional forms and conversational language; 'The Road Not Taken,' 'Mending Wall,' and 'Birches' are among his best-known works; won 4 Pulitzer Prizes

Sylvia Plath

Confessional poet; 'Ariel' (1965) and 'The Bell Jar' (1963) explore depression, death, and female identity with raw autobiographical intensity

Allen Ginsberg

Beat Generation poet; 'Howl' (1956) is a defining Beat text, blending Whitman's long lines with jazz rhythms in a rage against American conformity

Confessional Poetry

Mid-20th-century movement using intensely personal autobiographical material; key figures: Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Robert Lowell, W.D. Snodgrass

Beat Generation

1950s–60s literary movement rejecting mainstream conformity and materialism; central figures: Allen Ginsberg (poetry), Jack Kerouac (prose), William S. Burroughs

The Waste Land (1922)

T.S. Eliot's fragmented modernist epic reflecting spiritual emptiness after WWI; uses multiple languages, literary allusions, and shifting voices across five sections

Howl (1956)

Allen Ginsberg's Beat manifesto poem opening 'I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness'; its obscenity trial became a free speech landmark

Objective Correlative

T.S. Eliot's critical term: the technique of expressing emotion through concrete objects and situations rather than directly stating feelings

Anne Sexton

Confessional poet who wrote candidly about mental illness, suicide, and female experience; 'Live or Die' (1966) won the Pulitzer Prize

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