American poetry of the first half of 20th century. The specificity of Paul Laurence Dunbar poetry. Content introduction chapter I the Poets Paul Laurence Dunbar

2.2. Modernism and after
At the same time, new poetic elements began to emerge. Other poets added their contributions to the rather quiet and unassuming character that American poetry seemed to have adopted. William Carlos Williams made effective use of colloquial speech; Robert Lowell examined the alienation of self; Theodore Roethke (as well as Lowell) focused on the suburbs as a possible place of quiet despair. In constrast to the negativism of alienation of self, Roethke gave poetic expression to an inward joy and a kind of poetic defiance to the terrors of modern life, and many poets found inspiration in ordinary, everyday experience rather than in some unusual happening or encounter.
Two characteristic strains that run through much of contemporary American poetry are instrospection and social criticism. These two themes are frequently combined into what we may call introspective social criticism, in which the poet explores the depths of his own feelings with regard to what appear to him to be the injustices of the society that forms his environment.
Sincerity and a fascination with opposition are among the most representative themes of the contemporary writer. These can be reflected in the poet's treatment, as well as in his choice, of subject matter. An intense awareness of the differences between appearance and fact, seeming and being, the superficial and the essential, is accompanied by a bold, sometimes daring use of oppositions and unexpected juxtapositions in form.
In his striving to cut through appearances, to strip away all but the bare truth, to avoid all that is not "absolutely true," the contemporary •poet has established a sense of honesty and protest against hypocrisy as one of his guiding principles. These principles are expressed in different ways according to each poet's temperament and manner of expression: from the raucous invective, the blunt, prosaic, strident manner commonly associated with literature of protest, to the most subtle, sensitive, oblique poetic metaphor. Indirectness is, in fact, an important characteristic differentiating contemporary poetry from the poetry that preceded it. While the words and images themselves are generally blunt, abrupt, and realistic—in keeping with contemporary attitudes and idiom—the total structure tends toward the implicit, compressed, and provocative, in contrast with the more literal and logical structure of traditional poetry. Sarcasm, irony, and paradox are the common tools of the modern poet.¹²
Interesting and important as the themes and directions of contemporary American poetry are, they should, as with all new trends in the creative arts, be viewed more as evolutionary stirrings than as permanent achievements. Tomorrow might see poetry take a new direction; or new modes of poetic expression, existing as a deep undercurrent, might not rise to the surface until some time in the future. Only time can determine the importance and lasting quality that these contemporary contributions will make to the development of 20th-century American poetry.