Language, Power, and Resistance in Contemporary Poetry: A Theoretical Framework

This study focuses on the politics of language in contemporary poetry based on an interdisciplinary theoretical framework through drawing on Michel Foucault's discourse theory, Norman Fairclough's critical discourse analysis, Jacques Derrida's deconstruction, and Edward Said, Homi K. Besides, it reflects the postcolonial theories of Bhabha and Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak. This study emphasises that language is an active ideological and political practice despite an aesthetic medium. Contemporary poetry mirrors and challenges power structures. Based on diction, silence, multilingualism, syntactic breaks, and fragmented expression, contemporary poetry explains and challenges power in the context of the politics of language. Existing studies have largely accentuated subjective political content, while micro-level linguistic strategies have been relatively neglected. Therefore, this essay analyses how the language of contemporary poetry generates ideological meanings, destabilises dominant discourses, and creates resistant fields within social, cultural, and political realities. The study also identified important gaps in existing literary criticism—notably insufficient integration of discourse theory and deconstruction, limited comparative linguistic analysis, and insufficient attention to language as an ideological practice. Finally, the essay demonstrates that the politics of language in contemporary poetry is enacted through destabilisation of meaning, discourse-based resistance, and cultural negotiation.