Modernism is a broad early-20th-century literary and artistic movement that rejected many inherited conventions in favor of experimentation, fragmentation, and new ways of seeing experience. In poetry, modernist writers often used free verse, unusual imagery, shifting voices, and abrupt structure to reflect a world shaped by rapid change, war, and uncertainty.
Rather than following familiar Victorian forms and certainties, modernist poems often question tradition itself and make the reader work harder to connect the parts of the poem.
Example
Streetlight on the rain-dark pavement.
A train breathes once, then disappears.
In the shop window, a broken clock
keeps time by refusing to move.