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World-making

Concept
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

The poetic act of constructing fictional realities or comprehensive imagined systems

Detailed Definition
World-making: The poetic act of creating new realities, frameworks, or conceptual universes through language rather than merely describing existing phenomena. World-making emphasizes poetry's generative power to bring possibilities into being, treating verse as cosmological activity that constructs alternative realities or reveals dimensions of existence previously unarticulated.
Example
Example in poetry:
World-making appears in Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” which constructs cosmic geography and theology; in Octavia Butler’s poetic prose, speculative worlds critique social structures; N.K. Jemisin’s poetic world-building in “The Broken Earth” trilogy uses verse-like cadence; Indigenous poet Layli Long Soldier’s “Whereas” reimagines legal and linguistic space as poetic territory; Ursula K. Le Guin’s “Paradises Lost” blends narrative and lyric to envision post-Earth societies.
Additional Notes
The poetic act of creating entire worlds or realities through language, emphasizing the constructive power of verse. Related to creator-poet concepts.
Also Known As
Cosmogony Universe-building World-creation Mythopoeic invention Demiurgic
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