Jacques Derrida's deconstruction challenges the Western tradition's logocentrism. In poetry, it manifests in self-conscious language, irony, and a refusal of fixed meaning. Poetic texts become sites where meanings proliferate, where the reader is active in constructing significance. This approach blurs genre boundaries and emphasizes the play of signifiers, revealing that language is not transparent but deeply layered and ambiguous.

Deconstruction is a philosophical and critical method developed by Jacques Derrida that seeks to expose the instability and contradictions within language and texts. It challenges the Western metaphysical tradition, which Derrida calls "logocentrism," by showing that meaning is never fully present but is always deferred through the play of signifiers. In poetry, deconstruction manifests as a self-consciousness about language, a fragmentation of form, and a refusal of fixed meaning. Poets influenced by deconstruction might use irony, paradox, and contradictory images to show how language inevitably undermines its own claims to truth. A deconstructive reading of a poem would look for the points where the text's meaning breaks down, revealing hidden assumptions and hierarchies. This approach has profoundly influenced postmodern poetry, encouraging a playful and skeptical attitude toward language, and making the act of reading a collaborative, open-ended process of meaning creation.