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blended break

Device
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 caesura that integrates smoothly into a line’s rhythm, avoiding disruption and maintaining fluidity despite the internal pause.

Detailed Definition
blended break is a lineation technique where enjambment and caesura interact to create overlapping syntactic and rhythmic pauses, producing a fluid yet fractured reading experience; the break both continues and interrupts meaning, allowing multiple interpretive layers to coexist within a single phrase, as seen in the work of Jorie Graham or Claudia Rankine.
Example
Example in poetry:
Blended break: enjambment that mixes two syntactic structures crossing line boundaries to create tension; example lines where sentence meaning spills disturbingly over line breaks, enhancing emotional or thematic effect; modern free verse using blended breaks to disrupt reader expectation.
Additional Notes
A type of enjambment or line break where the flow of thought or syntax crosses the line break, but the two parts of the line are also conceptually or acoustically "blended" or closely intertwined, often with a subtle internal rhyme or consonance across the break; Less disruptive than a sharp break.
Also Known As
Fused break Blended pause Overlapping line break Blended caesura Merged caesura
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