I do. This is not postmodernism. (Incidentally, poetry published today isn't postmodernism, either, as postmodernism ended anywhere from 2 to 4 decades ago. Today's poetry is called 'contemporary' until we come up with a better term.)

Furthermore, as far as 'representation' is a term specific to postmodernism, it only refers to the idea that writing REPRESENTS a history or reality which may not, in fact, be capturable -ie, that does not properly exist. This, rather than the classical or naturalist notion that writing can "capture" things as they really happened.

So are you saying that the thing we don't understand about this poem is that it's not an actual void, only a REPRESENTATION of void? Hey, good one. But we've all known that since kindergarten, postmodernism (as I've mentioned) having been around since before most of us were born.

By the by, you probably screwed up your other postmodernism term, too. Intertextuality, as used by postmodernists, means the understanding that texts derive from and interact with each other - as opposed to the more classical notion that a text can stand alone as its own entity. You can't "use" intertextuality in your poem, only at best acknowledge it. Did you mean that Nick doesn't get how your work depends on Dylan Thomas' text for its only half-decent line, or that you shouldn't read this poem without simultaneously listening to Gish-era Smashing Pumpkins? For my money, you meant that you were throwing out the only postmodernist vocab you know in a sagging bid for self-esteem, along with the suggestion that none of us understand "postmodernist" poetry except you. Please don't make any more assumptions about us. Thanks. It's been great talking to you.

I do know quite a lot about post-modernism and my PhD engaged with different notions of intertextuality, notably Bloom's theory of antithetical criticism. Theorists are divided as to whether all texts are intrinsically intertextual (as Kiristeva might argue) or whether it is generally a conscious writing strategy, the deliberate use of allusion to create a complex matrix of potential meaning. Which, of course, leads us into reader-response criticism and the idea that King Lear is about nuclear war; not, of course that he consciously intended this, but that a modern reader will re-interpret the text in light of their own experience.

Intertextuality is good. All poetry is written in response to what has gone before, all poetry is criticsm of other literature. Nicking lines from Dylan Thomas because you can't think of your own is just being a bit rubbish/