Modernist poetry can be defined as which of the following? a) a school of literature that was prominent in the first decades of the twentieth century and that advocated breaking with the traditions of the past and incorporating experimental techniques to create works that accurately depicted the complexities of modern life. b) a style of art and literature which developed in the early 20th century, characterized chiefly by an emphasis on formal structure, the reduction of natural forms, and the re-organization of pieces to represent objects independently of representational requirements. a movement in nineteenth-century american literature and thought. it called on people to view the objects in the world as small versions of the whole universe and to trust their individual intuitions. poetry that is often written in a way that is quite free form and meant to reflect the process of thought or organic speaking through a stream of consciousness style.