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Autopoiesis

Philosophy
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

Self-production through which a living or symbolic system continually makes and sustains itself.

Detailed Definition
Applied to poetry, autopoiesis describes a work that generates its own rules, meanings, and patterns as it unfolds. A poem may begin with ordinary syntax, then invent a recurring grammar that reorganizes every later line. Its images become not merely ornaments but mechanisms for preserving the poem's identity. The concept, drawn from theories of living systems, helps explain how a poem can behave like an environment that renews itself through internal feedback.
Example
Example in poetry:
Autopoiesis describes a self-making system, and a poem can enact it by generating its own rules through repetition and variation; A sequence of linked poems may continually revise its images until the work becomes a self-sustaining verbal world; In a self-referential poem, the act of writing produces the speaker who claims to be writing; A poem that repeats a line with altered meanings demonstrates autopoiesis because each return reshapes the poem’s identity
Additional Notes
Autopoiesis describes a system that continually produces and repairs the components that sustain its own organization. The concept, developed in biology and later used in systems theory, can also illuminate language, identity, or a poetic tradition that renews itself through repeated forms and variations. It is related to self-organization.
Also Known As
Self-Production Self-Creation
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