Postmodern Poetry

The purpose of the present study is to explore the two concepts of time and space in postmodern lyric poetry of the two poets of the 1950s through the lens of the Heideggerian existential theory of time and space, which regards time as a horizon for understanding Being and distinguishes three different types of space: (1) world-space, (2) regions , and (3) Dasein's spatiality. To fulfill this objective, some selected poems of the two poets, including Allen Ginsberg and Ted Hughes, were analyzed temporally and spatially. The findings suggested that the two poets tend to treat time and space existentially and reject eternality. It was revealed that they are existential poets whose existence is manifested in their quest for identity within the immediate world or the global world as well as their concerns for their homeland and ideals. In their poems, time and space are intermingled with Being and reflect each individual’s relationship with the world. The result of the analysis of poems showed that their poetry is not just the language of imagination and perception, but also the language of existence. The world is regarded as an existential space-time continuum and being-in-the-world is the fundamental ontological situation for Dasein. Accordingly, the world, like poetry, is a disclosure of things in nearness or distance, which matters to human beings

This study examines how The Maximus Poems by Charles Olson and The Opening of the Field by Robert Duncan build on Fredric Jameson’s critique of pastiche, offering a more immediate and engaged model of postmodern writing. Drawing on Jameson’s reading of Lacan—particularly his use of schizophrenia as a way to describe the breakdown of the signifying chain in late capitalism—the research explores how both poets confront the fragmentation of language and its absorption into commodified culture. Olson’s projective verse emphasizes presence and locality, while Duncan’s layered syntax and mythic references resist fixed interpretation and invite open-ended exploration. The study uses close reading and theoretical interpretation to show how both poets turn poetic form into a site of resistance, where language—though fractured— still carries meaning and shapes how we see the world. In Jameson’s terms, these works function as “symbolic texts,” where personal expression and social contradiction intersect. Rather than mirror postmodern disorientation, the poems open up a space for a different kind of awareness—one that moves through the tension between imagination and structure, and points toward the hope and possibility woven into poetic form.