Home › Glossary › Letter G

Glosa

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 Spanish poetic form that elaborates on each line of a borrowed quatrain (often from another poet), typically in four ten-line stanzas.

Detailed Definition
A Glosa is a Spanish poetic form that takes a quatrain (the cabeza or “head”) from another poet and composes four ten-line stanzas, each ending with one line of the original quatrain in sequence; demanding both homage and invention, it weaves commentary, expansion, and personal reflection around the borrowed lines, as practiced by contemporary poets like P.K. Page, transforming the glosa into a dialogue across time that honors tradition while asserting new voice.
Example
Example in poetry:
Glosa: “Each stanza ends with a line from Sor Juana” (classic form); Modern glosa on Dickinson: “Hope is the thing with feathers—”; “Glossing Neruda: ‘I want to do with you what spring does’”; Student glosa using Beatles lyric
Additional Notes
Spanish form: poem glossing existing quatrain. Each line of quatrain becomes refrain for 10-line stanza. Related: fixed forms, Spanish poetry. Study: how gloss interprets source.
Also Known As
Gloss poem Variation poem Spanish gloss Footnote verse
Skip to main content