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Recursive poetry

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 that repeats or reuses its own lines, phrases, or structures in a self-referential loop

Detailed Definition
Recursive poetry employs self-referential loops, repetitions, or structures that fold back on themselves, mirroring mathematical or computational recursion; it may reuse phrases with slight alterations, embed poems within poems, or cycle through motifs to explore infinity, memory, or systemic patterns, often blurring origin and repetition.
Example
Example in poetry:
John Ashbery’s “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror,” looping back on its themes; Douglas Kearney’s “Sho,” using recursive structures; Poems that quote or rework their own lines, like Gertrude Stein’s “Sacred Emily”; Recursive form in Harryette Mullen’s “Sleeping with the Dictionary”
Additional Notes
Recursive poetry repeats or re-enters its own structure, language, or themes in a self-referential loop; common in postmodern and conceptual work.
Also Known As
Looping verse Self-citing poetry Circular form Echoic structure Coiled verse feedback verse Fractal verse Internal referencing self-similar verse
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