Poetry As Viewed By Its Practitioners: Some Representative Examples

The following is an attempt to explore the various thematic aspects of a particular type of poetry prevalent in twentieth century British and American literatures—the so-called‘ Poetry for Poetry’s Sake’. It is a self-referential type of verse whose paramount emphasis is laid on analyzing the nature of poetry and its problematics and its significance as viewed by its own practitioners. The paper comprises two sections, followed by a brief conclusion. The first section is introductory in that it tries to contextualize this phenomenon of metapoetry within its general and wide framework of other adjacent literary genres such as metafiction, metadrama or metacriticism. The second section, much the longest, is concerned with shedding light on some representative examples from twentieth century British and American literatures.