Introduction
Chapter I General Information on American Poetry 1.1 Historical and Cultural Contexts of 20th Century American Poetry 1.2 American Modernism
Chapter II The Life and Work of Some of the 20th Century American Poets 2.1 Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888 – 1965) 2.2 Marianne Moore (1887 – 1972)
Conclusion
Bibliography

INTRODUCTION Development in learning English has widely opened the door to the unknown world of foreign literature. While learning a new language may require the devotion of a learner, it exposes the original beauty that is hidden under the names which, I’d like to mention, culture, traditions and literature. It is clearly seen from the history that a nation cannot exist without its customs, spoken language and written literature. Having all these nuances in mind, I dedicate my course paper to revealing all the perfection of literature which is expressed through poetry. There are as many definitions of poetry as there are poets. Wordsworth defined poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings;" Emily Dickinson said, "If I read a book and it makes my body so cold no fire ever can warm me, I know that is poetry;" and Dylan Thomas defined poetry this way: "Poetry is what makes me laugh or cry or yawn, what makes my toenails twinkle, what makes me want to do this or that or nothing." Poetry is a lot of things to a lot of people. One of the most definable characteristics of the poetic form is economy of language. Poets are miserly and unrelentingly critical in the way they dole out words to a page. Carefully selecting words for conciseness and clarity is standard, even for writers of prose, but poets go well beyond this, considering a word's emotive qualities, its musical value, its spacing, and yes, even its special relationship to the page. The poet,