Home › Glossary › Letter B

Biopoetics

Concept
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

An interdisciplinary approach examining how biological processes—such as evolution, cognition, or embodiment—influence poetic form and meaning.

Detailed Definition
Biopoetics is an interdisciplinary approach examining how biological processes—evolution, cognition, emotion—inform poetic creation and reception; drawing on neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, and ecology, biopoetics investigates universal patterns in metaphor, rhythm, and narrative, arguing that poetry arises from and speaks to innate human capacities for pattern recognition, social bonding, and environmental attunement.
Example
Example in poetry:
Biopoetics in Jane Hirshfield’s essays linking biology and poetic form; Contemporary biopoetics by David Abram emphasizes sensory ecology; Biopoetics explores how life processes shape poetic structure; The field bridges evolutionary theory and lyric expression; Biopoetics views poetry as an adaptive, living system
Additional Notes
Poetry informed by biological sciences, exploring life processes through verse. Related: ecopoetics, scientific poetry. See also: biorhythmic verse. Interdisciplinary approach gaining prominence in environmental and ecological poetry.
Also Known As
Biological poetics evolutionary poetics
Skip to main content