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Respiratory 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 of verse structured according to the natural rhythm of the poet’s breath, as in projective verse

Detailed Definition
Respiratory line aligns poetic line length with the natural breath unit of the speaker; central to Olson’s “Projective Verse,” it treats the line as a measure of energy and utterance, encouraging organic, speech-based composition that mirrors the body’s rhythms rather than abstract metrical grids.
Example
Example in poetry:
Lines structured by breath length, not meter: “I breathe in—you— / I breathe out—gone—”; Charles Olson’s “Projective Verse”: “the line… must be managed by ear”; Poetry mimicking inhalation/exhalation patterns; Free verse where pauses align with natural respiration
Additional Notes
Respiratory line aligns poetic line length with natural breath units; central to Olson’s projective verse—read aloud to test organic flow.
Also Known As
breath line organic line speech-unit line prosodic breath Breath-measured line exhalation-based line
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