Home › Glossary › Letter B

break concentration

Sound
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

The clustering of several pauses (caesuras or line breaks) in close succession to disrupt rhythm and create a halting, fragmented sonic texture.

Detailed Definition
break concentration refers to the poetic technique of focusing reader attention on a specific caesura, enjambment, or line break to heighten semantic ambiguity, emotional pause, or rhythmic surprise; by isolating the break as a site of meaning-making, poets like Emily Dickinson or William Carlos Williams transform silence and fragmentation into expressive tools.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy,” abrupt shifts in tone break concentration to mirror psychological fracture; T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” uses fragmented voices to disrupt reader focus intentionally; Claudia Rankine interrupts lyrical flow in “Citizen” with prose blocks that break concentration for critical reflection; In “Zong!,” M. NourbeSe Philip fractures syntax to break concentration and evoke historical trauma; Anne Carson’s “Autobiography of Red” uses white space and digression to destabilize attention.
Additional Notes
A stylistic effect where a line break or caesura forces the reader to focus intensely on the words or image immediately preceding or following the break; The pause concentrates the reader's attention on the isolated fragment.
Also Known As
Concentration break Thought-breach Break of focus Caesura cluster
Skip to main content