This is a highly contentious subgenre of art, with some understandably arguing that something so short should not even qualify as a poem.Ĭounterarguments can be made, boiling down to many of the same arguments used to defend modern art. The above poem is more similar to the most extreme interpretations of minimalism. Not all minimalist poems concern themselves with even this much, however.
While uncommon, this attention to technique allows the poem to showcase that the writer does have the capacity for more technical poetry and has consciously chosen to use a minimalist style instead. This particular poem uses alliteration, assonance, and multiple internal rhymes, despite having very little real estate in which to include them. Note that the poem lacks any punctuation, using capitalization as a stand-in for where the lines would normally divide. The above poem attempts to capture the observation and feeling of a single moment as concisely as possible, with a mere 13 words. It’s safer to approach minimalism by saying that the intent to provide as much meaning as possible in as short a poem as possible is the core defining feature of minimalism. These are ultimately just subgenres of the greater style, though. Others might argue that true minimalism is only achieved when a poem is much shorter than even Kaur’s works and that it must have absolutely zero ‘waste’ to approach a truly minimalist form. Some might point to the new wave of minimalism popularized by writers like Rupi Kaur, which utilizes short lines and a lack of punctuation to draw focus to the words and nothing but the words. The extent that a poem has to go to in order to be considered ‘minimalist’ depends on the interpreter. The movement spread concurrently with the spread of concrete poetry, so there has been some notable overlap between these two types of poetry. Minimalists will sometimes utilize changes in font, spacing, or creative use of white space to achieve more impact with fewer words. Modern minimalism usually seeks to ask: How simple can it be before it loses impact and meaning? This can be taken to the logical extreme, as with one-word poems of the 1960s, or it can be more broadly applied to the notion of concision. The most defining feature of minimalism is actually its lack of features, in a sense.Ī poem influenced by minimalism will attempt to be as short as possible with as little punctuation and narrative as possible. What Are the Key Features of Minimalist Poetry? Still popular today but swept through every medium in the last third of the 20th century What Are the Basic Properties of Minimalist Poetry? Rhyme Structure Poetic minimalism, for its part, has continued to experience pockets of popularity into the modern day. This is predominantly due to the natural simplicity of the movement’s ideal.Įverything about minimalism can be defined by the phrase “less is more” so it is easy to imagine how it should translate to various forms of art. Whereas many movements are restricted chiefly to one discipline or to a handful of interrelated art forms, minimalism managed to reach into everything from cinema to fashion. This movement is unique in that it affected painting, sculpting, architecture, and literature on a scale that similar movements normally don’t reach. Stylistically, minimalism is exactly what it sounds like: Focusing on the bare minimum. Minimalism is an artistic movement that swept through every medium in the last third of the 20th century and still has advocates to this day. 8 What Are the Most Important Types of Poems? What Is Minimalist Poetry?
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