The Possibilities of Contemporary Poetry

The content of contemporary poetry is greatly enabled by the social growth of society. In current times, many more topics and issues are accepted and openly discussed than in the past. Over the years, more and more reform and change has created the opportunity to discuss controversial topics in art and literature. This change can be seen as you trace poetry over the years.

Looking far back to the metaphysical and earlier times, the topics frequently discussed were religion, love (in a more traditional way), and time. They poems seemed to be based on ideas and thoughts about major common themes. Moving farther and farther through history, we see work on more trivial topics, in addition to provocative ones: pretty much anything goes.

A major turning point can be seen in Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl.” Topics such as sexuality and drugs are addressed, and the poem was seen as extremely controversial. While barriers were being broken in his time, these topics would now be commonplace in poetry. In the readings I have attended, anything was accepted and many controversial topics were discussed such as sexuality, race, sexual assault, and much more. I think it is very important that these barriers were broken, because full expression and truth cannot be achieved if a poet feels they must hold back because of social restrictions. So many more things are possibly to achieve in poetry now, purely because of societies willingness to accept and discuss these controversial issues.