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Open line

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

A poetic line left syntactically or rhythmically open, flowing into the next

Detailed Definition
An open line in poetry lacks terminal punctuation, allowing syntactic and rhythmic flow to continue uninterrupted into the next line, encouraging enjambment and mimicking natural speech or thought processes, a technique central to free verse and modernist poetics.
Example
Example in poetry:
A line in a poem that does not end with terminal punctuation (period, comma, semicolon) and runs over to the next line (enjambment); A stanza where the thoughts or sentences flow continuously across the line breaks; A line that rejects the constraint of rhyme or meter and simply continues the thought; A line that ends on a weak, unstressed syllable, forcing the reader's eye to the next line;
Additional Notes
Open line: A line of poetry whose meaning and/or grammatical structure does not end at the line break but continues onto the next line without punctuation; this technique is called enjambment or run-on line and creates a sense of flow and speed.
Also Known As
unfinished line open-ended verse incomplete line Aerated line Permeable line Receptive verse line
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