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Pictorial verse

Form
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

Poetry designed to evoke or resemble a picture through imagery or layout

Detailed Definition
Pictorial verse arranges words on the page to visually resemble the poem’s subject—a form of concrete poetry where typography enacts meaning; from George Herbert’s “Easter Wings” to Apollinaire’s calligrammes, this technique merges visual art and language, insisting that how a poem looks is inseparable from what it says, engaging the eye as well as the ear.
Example
Example in poetry:
George Herbert’s "Easter Wings" shapes lines like wings; Apollinaire’s calligrammes form visual shapes (e.g., "Il Pleut" as falling rain); e.e. cummings’s typographical poems ("l(a") mimic a leaf falling; Mary Ellen Solt’s "Forsythia" arranges words like blossoms; concrete poets like Augusto de Campos use letters as visual material.
Additional Notes
Pictorial verse arranges words visually to form shapes or images—concrete poetry (e.g., Apollinaire’s calligrammes). Meaning emerges from spatial layout as much as text. Students should consider how form affects reading: does the eye move differently? Related to “visual poetics” but more graphic.
Also Known As
Ekphrastic verse Pictorial lyric Visual stanza Image-driven poem Hieroglyphic verse Visual haiku
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