Home › Glossary › Letter A

Asemic poetry

Movement
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Poetry that abandons semantic meaning in favor of pure visual or sound expression

Detailed Definition
A form of concrete poetry that uses writing-like marks, symbols, or sounds that appear meaningful but carry no specific semantic content, focusing on aesthetic rather than communicative function
Example
Example in poetry:
Asemic poetry in Henri Michaux’s “Alphabet”; asemic poetry in Cy Twombly’s scribble poems; asemic poetry in Mirtha Dermisache’s graphic scores; asemic poetry uses non-linguistic marks to evoke writing without semantic content
Additional Notes
Poetry using illegible or invented symbols rather than readable language. Visual art-poetry hybrid. Related to concrete poetry and visual poetry. Challenges conventional reading; emphasizes visual/material qualities over semantic meaning.
Also Known As
meaningless writing non-semantic verse
Skip to main content