POETICKS

Introductory Remarks by Comprepoetica Lexicographer Bob Grumman: a number of terms concerning poetics and related areas follows–approximately in alphabetical order. I hope visitors will critique them for both style and content–and add their own terms, with or without definitions in the following box (but, please, if a suggested term is unusual, try to define it):

During the three or four years I’ve asked for terms, I’ve gotten NONE with definitions, and–at most–two terms not either already in my dictionary or in every standard dictionary and not in mine only because I obviously haven’t gotten around to putting it in. It is annoying to be sent entries like “alliteration,” for instance. I consider it spam–although I realize some senders may sincerely have thought they were helping me out. Anyway, I’m closing down the sending area for new words so I won’t be any longer bothered with inappropriate responses.

Suggested Poetics Term(s):

Many of the first terms recorded here are from the glossary of my book on poetry, Of Manywhere-at-Once, Volume 1: Ruminations from the Site of a Poem’s Construction. I didn’t start with them because of their importance but because they are the poetics terms most readily available to me. Note: many of the terms and/or definitions are peculiar to me, so don’t use them to answer questions in exams, kids.

aesthcipient: the recipient of an artwork, especially one who experiences it in more than
one way–e.g., visually and verbally

alliteration: a repenation whose shared sound is a consonant-sound that begins a
syllable (e.g., bat/bug and kite/cane)

alphaconceptual poetry: for the most part, poetry whose spelling is equaphorically
significant, and which is therefore “infra-verbally” as well as verbally expressive

alphaconceptual illumagery: for the most part, textual illumagery whose textual elements
are equaphorically important

anapaestic meter: a form of meter one “foot” or unit of which consists of two
weak beats followed by a strong one, as in the word, “interrupt”

archetype: an image or idea so powerful to the human psyche that it is universally
emotionally rich

assonance: a repenation whose shared sound is a vowel-sound (e.g., bat/rag and
pick/sift)

backward rhyme: in general, any set of words whose last or only syllables sound alike
except for their final sounds (e.g., miles/mind)

cacophony: a harsh sound–commonly used in poetry to provide relief from excessive
euphony

compound pluraesthetic poetry: poetry which is pluraesthetic in more than one major
way

concrete poetry: a 1950’s term which has come to mean approximately what I mean by
the term, “vizlature”

consonance: a repenation whose shared sound is a consonant-sound that ends a
syllable (e.g., bat/cut and rib/job)

content: in my poetics simply a poem’s physical text (and what it means semantically)

dislocational poetry: poetry whose syntax or train of thought is dislocatingly
unconventional

dysphony: cacophony

euphony: a particularly musical sound in poetry

equaphor: that term of an equaphorical expression that is the less important of
the expression’s two terms so far as the artwork containing the expression is concerned; four
kinds exist: the simile, the metaphor, the juxtaphor and the symbol

equaphorical expression: an aesthetic analogy, explicit or implicit, that consists of an
equaphor and the equaphor’s referent

equaphoration: a poem’s analogical devices.

equaphorical referent: that term of an equaphorical expression that is the more
important of the expression’s two terms so far as the artwork containging the expression is
concerned.

foot: one unit of a meter

fore-burden: what, on the surface, a poem is chiefly about (e.g., its plot, or what
happens; its argument, or “moral;” its ambience, or “feel”)

form: the sum of a poem’s most abstract structural elements–such as its metric pattern,
its rhyme- scheme–and perhaps the grammatical conventions it adheres to; that which “contains”
a poem’s content

highverse: poetry which depends for its main esthetic effect on equaphoration

iambic meter: a form of meter one “foot” or unit of which consists of a weak beat
followed by a strong beat, as in the word, “pursue”

illumagery: visual art

illuscription: words and pictures together in more or less equal portions but not fused

internal rhyme: a rhyme one or more of whose rhymenants are within a line rather than
at its end

inversion: the shifting of one word from after to before a second against normal prose
usage– usually in order to complete a rhyme or to obey some metrical scheme

irony: a juxtaphor in which an image or idea is presented concurrently with its reverse

juxtaphor: an implicit metaphor of which there are several kinds, including the irony, the
pun, the onomatopoeia and the litraphor

language poetry: a dislocational form of poetry

lineation: the division of a text into lines ending or beginning where their author dictates
rather than at (or near) some constant pre-set margin

litraphor: an entirely verbal juxtaphor whose equaphor and referent are separate from
each other.

Manywhere-at-Once: a state of being in more that one consequential area of one’s
mind at once due to the effects of poetry

melodation: a poem’s sound, or its combination of rhyme, meter, alliteration, euphony,
cacophony and like aurally-based devices

metaphor: an object, process or group of objects or processes that is equated
(equaphorically) with a second object, process or group of objects or processes with which it
has some elements in common but is otherwise significantly different from; or, put more simply, a
pair of dissimilar images which are (equaphorically) equated with each other, and thus put an
aesthcipient into Manywhere-at-Once

meter: the result of syllables’ arrangement into a repeating pattern of accented and
unaccented beats of which, in my poetics, there are only two important kinds, the iambic and the
anapaestic

nearprose: poetry whose only poetic device is lineation

nexus: the implicit image or concept that an equaphor and its referent have in common,
or meet at

normal rhyme: in general, any set of words whose last or only syllables sound alike
except for their first sounds (e.g., seems/dreams)

octave: the first eight lines of an “Italian” sonnet

onomatopoeia: a word or group of words whose pronunciation suggests what it
denotes–buzz, for instance, both meaning, and sounding like, the sound a bee makes

parallellism: the gross repetition of words, syntax or thoughts in poetry (and prose)

pattern poetry: shaped poems

pluraesthetic poetry: poetry which is “plurally aesthetic”–or “aesthetically expressive in
more than one major way”–such as visual poetry

poetry: in my poetics any text that is lineated

prose: anything verbal that isn’t poetry

pun: a word (or group of words) which is used to express two different things at once:
its own meaning and that of a second verbal expression which it exactly or nearly sounds like–
or is

repenation: that which results when two or more syllables that are fairly close to each
other in a passage share one or more sounds (excluding the sound of silence)

repeneme: the sounds shared by the syllables involved in a repenation

rhyme: in general, any set of words whose final, or only, syllables sound alike except
for one of their sounds (e.g., seems/dreams, miles/mind and seek/sake)

rhymenant: one of the members of a rhyme (e.g., “seems” is one of the rhymenants of
seems/dreams)

rhythm: the arrangement of strong and weak beats in poetry or prose–or music

rim-rhyme: in general, any set of words whose final, or only, syllables sound alike
except for their vowels (e.g., seek/sake)

sestet: the last six lines of an “Italian” sonnet

shaped poetry: poetry whose lines are at appropriate times indented and/or cut short in
such a way as to make their texts resemble things out of nature to the eye

simile: a metaphor whose equaphor and referent have been explicitly connected to one
another through the use of “like” or its equivalent (e.g., “brain like a sieve”)

sonnet: a traditional poetic form consisting of fourteen iambic pentameters each of
whose last words rhymes with some other line’s last word

stanza: in poetry what paragraphs are in prose

strophe: stanza

style: in my poetics the tone-establishing kind of words or phrasing or the like
used in a poem

symbol: an advertance whose referent is barely suggested

tenor: I. A. Richards’s term for what I call a metaphor

textual illumagery: illumagery with textual elements added which modify its tone but
nothing deeper

undermeaning: any implicit meaning in a poem that makes sense

vehicle: I. A. Richards’s term for what I call a metaphor’s referent

verse: in my poetics, a synonym for poetry

visual poetry: poetry whose visual appearance is as important as what it says verbally,
to put it simply

vizlature: verbo-visual art, or that part of the media continuum where literature and
visual art overlap as in visual poetry and textual illumagery

Go to Comprepoetica Table of Contents.

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