Paralipsis is a form of indirect emphasis in which a speaker announces that a topic will be omitted or passed over, then supplies enough detail to make it memorable. Closely related to apophasis, it often has a more formal sense of deliberately skipping a point while exploiting the omission. In poetry, paralipsis can create a sly, self-conscious voice, especially in satire, elegy, and dramatic monologue. Poets use it to imply what cannot be openly said, expose hypocrisy, or make absence itself carry emotional and rhetorical weight.

Paralipsis often begins with phrases such as “not to mention” or “I will not speak of.” Because the speaker raises what is supposedly omitted, the device can signal irony, evasion, or strategic emphasis.