Home › Glossary › Letter E

Exophoric verse

Device
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

Poetry that refers to real-world people, events, or texts outside its own boundaries, requiring external knowledge for full interpretation or resonance.

Detailed Definition
Exophoric verse contains references that point outside the text to real-world contexts—historical events, personal experiences, or cultural knowledge—requiring external information for full comprehension; it blurs boundaries between poem and lived reality.
Example
Example in poetry:
Exophoric verse points outside the text, e.g., “As you saw on the news...”; Claudia Rankine’s “Citizen” uses exophora to reference real events; Exophoric verse requires reader’s external knowledge; The form blurs poem and world.
Additional Notes
Poetry using references pointing outside the text itself. Exophoric references to real world. Related: referential poetry, deixis. Study: text/world boundary.
Also Known As
Referential verse Context-dependent poetry External-reference verse
Skip to main content