what are the characteristics of contemporary poetry?maybe in contrast with modern poetry..

To allow students to comprehend the difference between
contemporary poetry and formal poetry by assigning them to write a traditional and
contemporary poem on the same picture in the Freestyle mode of PicLits.com. Background
Traditional poetry is more strict in its form. The sonnet, ode, blank verse, ballad,
dramatic monologue each have formal elements that poets follow. For example, the sonnet
is a 14-line poem in iambic pentameter with a set rhyme scheme. William Shakespeare,
John Milton, John Donne, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, and John Keats wrote
traditional poetry, among others.

Below is a traditional
poem: On the Sea

It keeps eternal whisperings around
Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell Gluts twice ten thousand Caverns, till the
spell Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound. Often 'tis in such gentle temper
found, That scarcely will the very smallest shell Be mov'd for days from where it
sometime fell, When last the winds of Heaven were unbound. Oh ye! who have your
eye-balls vex'd and tir'd, Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea; Oh ye! whose ears
are dinn'd with uproar rude, Or fed too much with cloying melody— Sit ye near some old
Cavern's Mouth, and brood Until ye start, as if the sea-nymphs quir'd! –John Keats
1819

What is Contemporary Poetry? Contemporary poetry is
difficult to define as it is a plane that is being built while in flight, but there are
some fundamental characteristics of contemporary poetry that distinguish it from
traditional poetry: Contemporary poetry is most often written in free verse (unrhymed
lines). The lines follow the natural rhythms of the language and not the strict five
stresses per line in iambic pentameter. Contemporary poetry is written in language that
is accessible to the common reader. Contemporary poetry suggests ideas rather than
overtly stating ideas. Contemporary poetry is brief in comparison to traditional poetry.
Contemporary poetry is grounded in the image. Contemporary poetry invites the reader to
complete statements, offer conclusions, and extract meaning. The meaning of the
contemporary poem exists more in the mind of the reader than in accessing the mind of
the poet. Below is a contemporary poem that is brief, unrhymed, suggestive, grounded in
imagery, and written in common, accessible language: The Peace of Wild Things When
despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of
what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of
wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the
presence of still water. And I feel above me the day blind stars waiting with their
light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. –Wendell
Berry