An absorptive line in poetry is a metrical or syntactic unit designed to draw the reader deeply into the imaginative or emotional world of the poem by minimizing self-conscious artifice and foregrounding immersive experience; such lines often use fluid enjambment, natural speech rhythms, sensory detail, and psychological immediacy to create a sense of unmediated presence, as seen in the confessional poetry of Sylvia Plath or the meditative blank verse of Wordsworth, where the poetic line becomes a conduit for empathetic engagement rather than formal display.

Line whose rhythm or syntax creates feeling of absorbing/drawing in preceding content. Opposite of projective line. Creates meditative, inward-turning effect. Associated with Robert Duncan.