Modern English poetry emerged from a period of profound political, social, economic, and cultural transformation. The First World War, industrialisation, nationalism, colonialism, economic inequality, fascism, the Second World War, and the crisis of traditional religious and moral values significantly altered the intellectual landscape of the twentieth century. In this context, poetry increasingly became a medium for questioning authority, exposing violence, representing social suffering, and articulating alternative forms of human consciousness. This article examines the poetics of resistance in modern English poetry through the selected works of W. B. Yeats, Wilfred Owen, W. H. Auden, T. S. Eliot, and George Orwell, while also considering broader developments in gender and postcolonial poetry. The study argues that resistance in modern poetry operates at both thematic and formal levels. War poetry challenges patriotic narratives; political poetry interrogates power and ideology; modernist fragmentation represents cultural disintegration; and postcolonial poetry contests imperial versions of history and identity. The article further suggests that poetic resistance should not be understood simply as direct political protest. Irony, symbolism, historical memory, fragmented form, linguistic experimentation, and the representation of marginalised experiences can also function as forms of resistance. Modern English poetry thus demonstrates how literary expression can preserve human dignity, challenge dominant narratives, and create a critical space for examining the relationship between power, history, society, and individual experience.