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Atomic meter

Meter
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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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

A metrical system based on the smallest possible units of sound or duration

Detailed Definition
Atomic meter describes a highly fragmented, minimal rhythmic unit—often a single stressed syllable or word—treated as an indivisible prosodic particle; used in avant-garde poetry, it rejects traditional feet in favor of granular sonic building blocks that emphasize isolation, rupture, or quantum precision.
Example
Example in poetry:
Atomic meter: Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” (“The apparition of these faces in the crowd; / Petals on a wet, black bough.”) uses atomic meter—each line functions as a self-contained rhythmic unit, indivisible and precise.
Additional Notes
Atomic meter: A metrical unit treated as indivisible or foundational within a poem’s rhythmic system; often used in theories of syllabic or quantitative verse.
Also Known As
Minimal unit meter Particle measure Indivisible rhythm Smallest-element prosody
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