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Lithic caesura

Device
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 caesura that evokes the silence, weight, or permanence of stone, often creating a stark, meditative pause.

Detailed Definition
Lithic caesura is a pronounced pause within a line of poetry that evokes the solidity, weight, or silence of stone—often marked by punctuation or stark imagery; it creates a moment of stillness or resistance within the flow, used in geopoetics or meditative verse to embody geological time.
Example
Example in poetry:
Emily Dickinson’s “I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—” uses lithic caesura (hard pause) before “Blue—uncertain stumbling Buzz”; Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” uses lithic caesura: “I think I may well be a / Jew”; Contemporary poet Ocean Vuong uses lithic caesura in “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong”: “Ocean, don’t be afraid”; Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods” uses lithic caesura: “The woods are lovely, dark and deep”; W.H. Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts” uses lithic caesura before “the disaster”; Lucille Clifton’s short lines create lithic caesura through line breaks.
Additional Notes
Caesura evoking stone, weight, or geological imagery. Related to thematic caesura and natural pause. Study tip: Consider how pause duration/placement reflects stone's permanence or heaviness.
Also Known As
stone-break erosional pause
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