Home › Glossary › Letter S

Somatic lyric

Genre
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

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 lyric poem that foregrounds bodily sensation, physical experience, and corporeal awareness

Detailed Definition
Somatic lyric centers bodily sensation—pain, pleasure, illness, movement—as poetic subject; linked to disability, feminist, and confessional traditions, it reclaims the body from abstraction, using visceral language to explore identity, vulnerability, and the politics of physical existence.
Example
Example in poetry:
Poems expressing emotion through bodily sensation: “My throat tightens with unsaid words”; Lucille Clifton’s “blessing the boats” linking physical and spiritual journey; Verse where heartbeat measures grief: “Thud. Thud. Gone.”; Pain rendered somatically: “My bones hum your absence”
Additional Notes
Somatic lyric centers bodily sensation, illness, or physicality as poetic subject; linked to confessional and disability poetics—prioritize visceral language.
Also Known As
bodily lyric corporeal verse flesh-centered poem physical song bodily verse Embodied poetry embodied poem
Skip to main content