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Image sonnet

Form
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 sonnet structured around a single, dominant visual image that evolves or refracts across its lines to convey emotional or thematic depth.

Detailed Definition
Image sonnet is a fourteen-line poem structured to develop a central image across its stanzas, using the sonnet’s traditional turn (volta) to shift perspective on the image and reveal new layers of meaning, emotion, or symbolic resonance.
Example
Example in poetry:
Keats’s “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” uses Petrarchan structure to frame discovery; Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73 (“That time of year thou mayst in me behold”) renders aging through seasonal images; Elizabeth Bishop’s “Sonnet” (“I am in need of music”) uses traditional form for intimate confession; Wanda Coleman’s “American Sonnet” subverts the form with urban imagery.
Additional Notes
Image sonnet uses the sonnet form to explore or unfold a central image rather than argue a thesis; blends formal structure with visual focus—Elizabeth Bishop and Wanda Coleman offer modern examples.
Also Known As
Pictorial sonnet visual fourteen-liner imagistic sonnet scene-sonnet Picture sonnet
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