Home › Glossary › Letter L

lyric poem

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 short poem expressing personal emotions or thoughts, often in a songlike style

Detailed Definition
A lyric poem is a short, subjective composition expressing personal emotion, thought, or perception, often musical in rhythm and imagery; unlike narrative or dramatic poetry, it focuses on a single moment of heightened awareness, traditionally associated with song and first-person introspection.
Example
Example in poetry:
Sappho’s “Fragment 1” (“Immortal Aphrodite…”); Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale”; Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death”; Li Bai’s “Drinking Alone by Moonlight”
Additional Notes
lyric poem: A short, subjective poem expressing personal emotion or reflection, often musical in rhythm; foundational genre in Western poetry, typically featuring a first-person speaker (10090).
Also Known As
Subjective verse Song-poem Emotional utterance Personal lyric
Skip to main content