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text-centered poem

Genre
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 poem that foregrounds the materiality or concept of texts, books, writing, or reading as its central subject or metaphor.

Detailed Definition
A text-centered poem prioritizes linguistic materiality—sound, syntax, typography—over narrative, imagery, or external reference, treating language itself as the subject; emerging from Language poetry and concrete traditions, it foregrounds the signifier over the signified, as in poems that explore homophones, palindromes, or visual arrangement to question representation and meaning-making processes.
Example
Example in poetry:
A text-centered poem focuses on language itself, not external referents: Language poetry that foregrounds syntax over meaning; Concrete poems where shape is message; Oulipo constraints (e.g., lipograms); Poems about writing poetry (“Ars Poetica” by Archibald MacLeish).
Additional Notes
text-centered poem|A poem whose subject matter is itself a piece of writing (a book, a letter, a sign), or which is highly self-reflexive about the nature of language and text; related to metapoetry.
Also Known As
Verbal-centered poem Text-focused verse Language-centered poetry Bibliopoem
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