The lecture maps major trends in the origin and development of modernist poetry in America, focusing predominantly on the major figures of American literary scene, namely T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and Robert Frost. It will discuss the radical turn from traditional poetic forms and themes to a new poetry that reflects the rapid social and cultural developments on the first decades of the 20th century and calls for a new role of the poet as well as a new approach to poetry reading.