Home › Glossary › Letter C

continuous lyric

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 lyric poem that flows without stanzaic division, maintaining a unified emotional or narrative thread

Detailed Definition
A continuous lyric is a poem that maintains an unbroken flow of subjective emotion and perception across its entire length, typically using enjambment, minimal punctuation, and consistent voice to simulate the immediacy of inner thought or sensory experience without narrative interruption or stanzaic division.
Example
Example in poetry:
Sappho’s Fragment 31 (“He seems to me equal to the gods…”) is a continuous lyric of desire without stanzaic division; In Frank O’Hara’s “Having a Coke with You,” the poem flows in one breathless stanza expressing love; In Louise Glück’s “Mock Orange,” the entire poem is a single stanza of emotional intensity; In Ocean Vuong’s “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong,” the lyric unfolds continuously in intimate address.
Additional Notes
A continuous lyric unfolds without stanzaic division, sustaining a single emotional or perceptual current; often uses enjambment and internal cohesion to mimic stream-of-consciousness or meditative states.
Also Known As
Unbroken lyric seamless song fluid meditation uninterrupted outpouring Continuous form Seamless verse
Skip to main content