Postmodernism and the Fragmented Voice in Contemporary American Poetry: Jorie Graham and Anne Carson
Main Article Content
Abstract
The concept and defining features of postmodernism in literature have been a topic of much discussion throughout history. The roots of postmodernism can be traced back to ancient Greece, and its impact has been felt across various aspects of culture, history, politics, and lifestyle. The historical connection between ancient Greek philosophy and Western thought reflects an assumption that invites reflection. The belief that everything is continuously mutable has cognitive and pragmatic centrality, influencing the way knowledge is built and understood. While not everyone may openly identify with postmodernism, the informal and multifarious verbal practices in society often reflect its principles. Understanding the historical background, key characteristics, techniques in literature, major themes, and key figures in postmodern literature can provide insight for those seeking to understand their place in the world. The concept of postmodernism in contemporary American poetry has been marked by an exploration of fragmented voices and identities, reflecting a broader cultural shift in understanding selfhood, language, and narrative. Fragmentation in postmodern poetry serves as both a literary technique and a thematic statement, emphasizing the instability of meaning and the plurality of perspectives.
Article Details

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication, with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal.
References
Goldhill, S., & Greensmith, . (2024). The poet's voice: essays on poetics and Greek
literature. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Khajieva, F., & Rakhimova , S. (2023, 21 11). EXPLORING LITERARY
INNOVATIONS: A CLASSIFICATION OF FRAGMENTED FORMS IN BELLESLETTRES TEXT. International Journal Of Literature And Languages, pp. 47-53.
Kohlert, T., Scherg, S., Sala, P., Pollmann, F., Madhusudhana, B. H., Bloch, I., et al.
(2023, Jan 6). Exploring the regime of fragmentation in strongly tilted Fermi-Hubbard
chains. Retrieved 11 8, 2024, from Physical Review Letters: .
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.010201
Narvaez, D., & Bradshaw, G. (2023). The Evolved Nest: Nature's Way of Raising
Children and Creating Connected Communities. United States: North Atlantic Books.
Van Praet, H. (2023, Sep. 14). “To Tell a Story by Not Telling It”: Toward a
Networked Poetics of Delay in Anne Carson's The Beauty of the Husband. Retrieved
10, 2024, from The Online Encyclopedia of Literary Neo-Avant-Gardes:
https://www.oeln.net/editorial-information
Anderson, B. (2020). The Book of Awesome Women Writers: Medieval Mystics,
Pioneering Poets, Fierce Feminists and First Ladies of Literature. Coral Gables:
Mango Publishing Group.
Anderson, C. (2020, May 11). “One Step Forward, two Steps Back”: Reading Trauma
in Ciaran Carson’s Poetry. New hibernia review= Iris eireannach nua, 24(3), pp.125-
Armstrong, K. (2022). Sacred nature: Restoring our ancient bond with the natural
world. New York: Knopf.
Baker, T. C. (2022). New Forms of Environmental Writing: Gleaning and
Fragmentation. New York; Oxford: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Bardey, A., Booth, M., Heger, G., & Larsson, J. (2022, Reberuary 16). Finding
yourself in your wardrobe: An exploratory study of lived experiences with a capsule
wardrobe. International Journal of Market Research, pp. pp.113-131.
Bell, A. L. (2021, April). Medium and medially in Anne Carson. Textual Practice, 36(
.
Bethell, R. (2021, August 4). The Historic Record of Vocal Sound (1650-1829).
Academia get, 1, pp. 1-54.
Bloom, H. (1973). The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry. . New York: Oxford
University Press.
Callanan, A. (2023, September). Orotating parafundities: reading Hopkins, Dickinson,
Murray, and Carson autistically. Retrieved 11 2, 2024, from Memorial University of
Newfoundland: http://research.library.mun.ca/id/eprint/16283
Carson, A. (2021). The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos . New
York: Vintage book.
Coles, E. S. (2023). Anne Carson: The Glass Essayist . New York: Oxford University
Press.
Deely, J. N. (2001). Four Ages of Understanding: The First Postmodern Survey of
Philosophy from Ancient Times to the Turn of the Twenty-first Century. Canada:
University of Toronto Press.
Fischer, R., Taubert, F., Müller , M., Groeneveld , J., Lehmann, S., Wiegand , T., et al.
(2021, Sep. 8). Accelerated forest fragmentation leads to critical increase in tropical
forest edge area. Retrieved 11 20, 2024, from Science advances:
1126/sciadv.abg7012
Flax, J. (2023). Thinking fragments: Psychoanalysis, feminism, and postmodernism in
the contemporary West. Los Angeles;Oxford: University of California Press.
Graham , J. (1993). Materialism: Poems. Hopewell, NJ: The Ecco Press.
Graham, N. (2022). Forces of Production, Climate Change and Canadian Fossil
Capitalism (Studies in Critical Social Sciences). The Netherlands: Haymarket Books.
Graham,, J. (1987). The End of Beauty. New York: The Ecco Press.
Grmusa , L. G., & Oklopcic, B. (2022). Memory and Identity in Modern and
Postmodern American Literature. Gateway East: Springer Singapore.
Harris, W. (2023). Tradition and the West Indian Novel. In D. Brydon,
Postcolonialism (p. 13). London: Routledge.
Joseph, S. (2024, November 10). Silent Spring: The Rise of the Environmental
Movement. Research Gat, pp. pp.111-133.
Kitching, G. (2020). The trouble with theory: The educational costs of postmodernism.
Austrailia: Taylor & Francis.
McFarlane, C. (2021). Fragments of the city: Making and remaking urban worlds.
California: University of California Press.
Muhammad, A., Hussain, Z., & Bashir, R. (2024, Spring 2). Analysis of Distortion and
Fragmentation in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Journal of Communication and
Cultural Trends, 6(1), 2-16.
Newbon, P. (2020). Lyric Voice and Ballad Voice. In S. Bushell, The Cambridge
Companion to 'Lyrical Ballads' (pp. pp. 66-84). Cambridge: The Cambridge
Companion to 'Lyrical Ballads'.
Ruprecht, L. A. (2021). Reach without Grasping: Anne Carson's Classical Desires.
New York: Lexington Books.
Saldanha, R. (2022, 8 31). The Problem of Love. crisiscritique.org, 9(1), 401-422.
Singer , M., & Walker, N. (2022). Bending genre: Essays on creative nonfiction. .
Northern Arizona: Bloomsbury.
Skade, A. (2021, march 11). “Watch this spillage”: allusion and intertext in the poetry
of Anne Carson. Retrieved 11 7, 2023, from doras.dcu.ie: https://doras.dcu.ie/25092/
Stanghellini, G. (2024, May 17). The psychiatrist is a ragpicker. Introduction to Walter
Benjamin for psychiatrists (II): the dialectics between the fragment and the whole.
International Review of Psychiatry, pp. pp.600-611.
Woolner, C. (2022, April 8). Listening to love: Aural attention, vocal iconicity, and
intimacy in Somaliland. ResearchGate, 49(2), pp. 178-190.
Yang, Y. (2023, September 4). The trauma and fragmentation narrative in Amy Tan's
The Kitchen God's Wife and Toni Morrison's Beloved. Retrieved 11 5, 2024, from
Humanities and Social Sciences Communications.: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-
-02046-6
Zona, K. H. (2005). “Jorie Graham and American Poetry.”. JSTOR, 46(4), pp. 667–87.