Recently, I was flipping through a book of poetry that I had saved from a creative writing course in college. The book, poems for the millennium contains a collection of modern and postmodern poetry. He is still one of my favorites from college. What I love about this book is that it shows what I consider to be a great aspect of modern and postmodern poetry: rebellion.

As writers, we are given the freedom to create whatever we want. Who says we have to stick to traditional rules? That’s what I love about modern poetry: it defies the rules set by its predecessors. Take the CoBrA (also known as Cobra) movement of the late 1940s as an example.

The name CoBrA comes from the cities in which the artists and poets lived: Copenhagen, brothermussels, and HASamsterdam. At the time, Europe was coming out of a time of war, and this post-war group was looking to continue life through art.

Like the Dadaists of the art world, Cobra artists rebelled against the Western popular culture of the time.

“We suppress aesthetic principles. We are not disappointed because we don’t have illusions. We never had them.”

– Constant, reflex manifesto1948

The artists deliberately challenged the principles of aesthetics and form, focusing instead on the power of words. Artists and poets combined their works to create art that could not even be linked to a name.

After reading the following poem, you may think that it is nonsense, an unnecessary repetition. Taken in a social context, however, its repetition, lack of capitalization, and punctuation means so much more. It was a reaction to the popular styles of the time.

crazy talk by Karel Appell

crazy is crazy

crazy people are crazy

being angry is everything

being everything is madness

Not being angry is everything.

Being everything is not crazy

To be nothing is to be crazy

being angry is nothing

everything is crazy

crazy is everything

because everything is crazy

Yet everything is crazy

And not being crazy is being crazy

Nothing is crazy after all

those who are not crazy are crazy

crazy people are not crazy

crazy is crazy

crazy crazy crazy

Much of the work of the Cobra movement would be difficult to reproduce here. If you’re interested, look up some of the following artists/poets: Lucebert, Christian Dotremont, Asger Jorn, Gerrit Kouwenaar, Pierre Alechinsky, and Hugo Claus.

Cobra’s movement was short-lived, though it is these rebellions that spark new movements, that cause general styles to change and change.

While it’s important to respect and honor traditional styles, I think it’s also imperative that the entire literary world rebel against them. Experiment with your art, with your writing. While it may not always be well received, it’s yours to make as you wish.