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immaterial

Concept
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

In poetry, a quality suggesting the non-physical, ephemeral, or spiritual, often evoked through abstract language

Detailed Definition
Immaterial in poetry refers to themes, images, or presences that lack physical form yet exert emotional or symbolic weight—such as memory, spirit, silence, or digital traces; poems engaging the immaterial often use abstraction, negative space, or metaphor to render the intangible palpable, questioning the boundaries between presence and absence, body and idea.
Example
Example in poetry:
Emily Dickinson’s “I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—,” where the physical world dissolves into immaterial perception; Wallace Stevens’s “The Snow Man,” describing a mind stripped of material illusion; Rumi’s verses on the soul’s invisibility: “You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop”; T.S. Eliot’s “Burnt Norton”: “Time present and time past / Are both perhaps present in time future”
Additional Notes
Immaterial in poetry denotes themes or imagery focused on the non-physical—spirit, memory, absence, or digital presence; often contrasted with materiality to question perception or reality.
Also Known As
Unseen Presence Ethereal Trace Ghosted Element Non-Corporeal Verse Intangible Non-concrete
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