Home › Glossary › Letter A

avant-garde sonnet

Form
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

A sonnet that breaks from traditional structure or content through experimental or innovative techniques

Detailed Definition
An avant-garde sonnet subverts or radically reinterprets the traditional sonnet form—typically 14 lines with a set rhyme scheme and volta—by disrupting meter, syntax, or structure to challenge poetic conventions; it may employ fragmentation, unconventional typography, or dissonant imagery while retaining the sonnet’s historical weight, exemplified in works by poets like E.E. Cummings or Claudia Rankine.
Example
Example in poetry:
Terrance Hayes’s “American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin” reimagines the sonnet with fragmented syntax and political urgency; Claudia Rankine’s use of prose blocks within sonnet-like structures in “Citizen” exemplifies avant-garde sonnet form; Jericho Brown’s “Duplex” blends sonnet tradition with innovative repetition and contemporary themes; Ocean Vuong’s “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong” uses sonnet conventions while subverting them with confessional, nonlinear narrative.
Additional Notes
An avant-garde sonnet subverts traditional form (14 lines, iambic pentameter, volta) through fragmentation, prose blocks, political content, or non-linear structure; poets like Terrance Hayes and Jericho Brown exemplify this; it retains the sonnet’s intensity while rejecting its conventions.
Also Known As
Experimental sonnet fractured sonnet postmodern sonnet radical sonnet Russian modernist sonnet
Skip to main content