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shaped 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 whose visual arrangement on the page reflects its semantic content, merging form and meaning graphically.

Detailed Definition
A shaped line employs visual formatting, indentation, or spacing to create distinctive appearance on the page, making lineation itself contribute to meaning through physical form. This technique foregrounds poetry's visual dimension, using spatial arrangement as semantic and aesthetic element.
Example
Example in poetry:
Shaped line appears in George Herbert’s “Easter Wings,” line lengths mimic wings; In Apollinaire’s “Il Pleut,” words fall like rain; In e.e. cummings’ “l(a,” typography shapes loneliness; In Ian Hamilton Finlay’s concrete poetry; In contemporary poet Jen Bervin’s “Nets,” Shakespeare’s sonnets reshaped visually.
Additional Notes
A line whose visual appearance on the page carries meaning, using typography, spacing, or arrangement to create additional significance.
Also Known As
Visual poetry Concrete verse Shaped text Pattern poetry Diagrammatic line Picture line
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