Indeterminacy and Personism in Postmodern American Poetry: A Study of Selected Meaningless Poets

True to its culture of breaking boundaries and overlapping edges, postmodern art, as well as theory has become a veritable terrain for artistic experimentation and innovation as advocated by Ezra Pound’s phrase “Make it New”. It is definitely in the light of showcasing such novelty that this paper is borne. The paper sets out to discuss postmodern poetics drawing examples from the poems of five authors: Charles Oslon, Frank O’Hara, Allen Ginsberg, John Cage and Robert Duncan. The article basically sets out to answer the question what is postmodern or cyber poetry and what are its defining aesthetics? It also attempts a comparative analysis of postmodernist poetics and the aesthetics of the poets under study. The paper is hinged on the hypothesis that besides unintelligibility and indeterminacy, personism and spontaneity,- the distancing of the author and proceduralism (the self-consciousness of postmodern improvisation), self-reflexivity, and reader engagement are some of the hall marks of postmodern poetry. By debunking grammar and syntax, and emphasizing pastiche and the meaninglessness of their poems; these poets demonstrate that far from organic unity and decorum, postmodern poetry exemplifies playful pluralism and “other” worlds and voices of contemporary postmodern experience. The paper submits that postmodern poets are derivative poets who engage in post-language lyric, and cyber technology as a form of poetics.