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Monomatic line

Meter
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 line composed predominantly of a single type of foot repeated throughout.

Detailed Definition
Monomatic line is a poetic line dominated by a single thematic, imagistic, or lexical motif—repeating or varying one core element to create obsessive focus or meditative intensity; such lines function like minimalist mantras, as in “Water water everywhere” or contemporary eco-poetry fixated on “plastic,” using constrained diction to amplify emotional or ecological urgency through relentless recurrence.
Example
Example in poetry:
Monomatic line (single metrical foot) appears in Greek lyric fragments; Contemporary poet Kay Ryan uses monomatic lines for wit: “Short”; Aram Saroyan’s “lighght” functions as monomatic visual line; Emily Dickinson’s short lines approach monomatic brevity; Robert Lax’s vertical poems like “peace” use monomatic repetition; Haiku’s final line often functions as monomatic emphasis.
Additional Notes
Single line using only one rhyme sound throughout. Extreme constraint creating incantatory effect. Related to monorhyme but compressed to single line unit.
Also Known As
Single-rhyme line Uniform-sound verse Monotonous line One-tone measure
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