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Kataklysmic verse

Structure
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

Poetry that builds toward a sudden, dramatic revelation or climax

Detailed Definition
Kataklysmic verse is poetry that enacts or responds to cataclysm—natural disaster, war, apocalypse—through fragmented form, urgent diction, and apocalyptic imagery; drawing from prophetic and elegiac traditions, it uses rupture, dissonance, and hyperbole to register collective trauma, as in Oppen’s post-Hiroshima poems or contemporary climate elegies, where language strains to bear witness to overwhelming rupture.
Example
Example in poetry:
Kataklysmic verse erupts in Apollinaire’s “Zone”: “You’re tired of this old world”; Ginsberg’s “Howl” uses kataklysmic verse: “Moloch whose mind is pure machinery!”; Surrealist poetry employs kataklysmic rupture: “the sky cracked like an egg”; Post-apocalyptic poets use kataklysmic verse to depict collapse; Audre Lorde’s “Power” channels kataklysmic rage against injustice
Additional Notes
Verse describing or enacting catastrophic breaking or flood. Greek 'kataklysmos' means deluge. Creates overwhelming, destructive imagery. Related to cataclysm and apocalyptic verse. Modern experimental form.
Also Known As
climactic verse revelatory structure
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