Monostich

{{Short description|Poem that consists of a single line}} A '''monostich''' is a poem which consists of a single line.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thefreedictionary.com/monostich|title=monostich|publisher=|via=The Free Dictionary}}</ref>

==Form==

A monostich has been described as "a startling fragment that has its own integrity"<ref>Hahn, Kimiko, "A Broken Thing: Poets on the Line"</ref> and "if a monostich has an argument, it is necessarily more subtle."<ref>Martin, Camille, "The Humble Monostich", Rogue Embryo, 2011 [http://rogueembryo.com/2011/12/31/the-monostich-true-found .]</ref>

A monostich could be also titled; due to the brevity of the form, the title is invariably as important a part of the poem as the verse itself.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.poetrydances.com/monostich.php|title=Poetry Dances - Monostich Poem - Instructions and Example|website=www.poetrydances.com}}</ref>

Some one-line poems have "the characteristics of not exceeding one line of a normal page, to be read as one unbroken line without forced pauses or the poetics of caesura", and others have "a rhythm, (as with one-line haiku), dividing easily into three phrases".<ref>Higgison, William "Characteristics of One Line Poems and Monostichs" Haiku Clinic, Simply Haiku.com</ref>

==History==

Modern monostich was started in Russia in 1894<ref>Kaun, Alexander 'Futurism and Pseudo-Futurism.' The Little Review, Vol. 1, No. 4, 1914, P. 15.</ref> when Valery Bryusov published this apparently absurdist single line:

:''О закрой свои бледные ноги.'' :''O zakrój svoí blédnye nógi.'' :(Oh, cover thy pale feet!, as translated by Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky)

Perhaps the first to reintroduce one-line poems was Guillaume Apollinaire with his "Chantre" (1914)<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.poetry.net/poem/16150 |title=Chantre |publisher=Poetry.Net |date=2011-05-13 |accessdate=2020-12-28 |quote=Chantre Guillaume Apollinaire 1880 (Rome) – 1918 (Paris) }}</ref> in his collection ''Alcools'' (1913), mentioned by Leroy Breunig in 'Apollinaire and the monostich' followed by Bill Zavatsky with his 'Roy Rogers' article (1974)<ref>Roy Rogers, article, Winter issue, New York Hospitality House, 1974</ref> in which he made clear that one-line poems are not at all foreign to Western poetic tradition, also including therein some from Jerome Rothenberg's 'Technicians of the Sacred' (1969),<ref>Higginson, William 'One line poems to one line Haiku' Haiku Clinic</ref> all of which are referenced in William Higginson's 'Characteristics of monostichs'.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.simplyhaiku.com/SHv2n5/haikuclinic/haikuclinic.html#return_7|title=Haiku Clinic #3: From One-line Poems to One-line Haiku|website=www.simplyhaiku.com}}</ref> Another French poet, Emmanuel Lochac, published one-line poems in 1920 under the title ''Monostiches''.<ref>Breunig Leroy, 'Apollinaire and the Monostich', 'Roy Rogers', New York House, 1974</ref>

However, as Dmitry Kuzmin has pointed out in the first book-length study of one-line poetry (2016), Walt Whitman included a monostich (though a very long line) in an 1860 edition of his ''Leaves of Grass''; and in 1893 and 1894 Edith Thomas, possibly in collaboration with an amateur author Samuel R. Elliott (1836–1909), anonymously published several one-line poems intended as a joke in ''The Atlantic Monthly''.<ref>Кузьмин Д. В. Русский моностих: Очерк истории и теории. — М.: Новое литературное обозрение, 2016. — С. 192-200. ''(In Russian)''</ref> In the 1920s one-line poetry was rediscovered in the US by Yvor Winters, Edwin Ford Piper, Charles Reznikoff and others. Later, John Ashbery in '37 Haiku' (1984) and Allen Ginsberg in 'American Sentences' (1987–1995) demonstrated haiku in the monostich form. Ian McBryde's 2005 book ''Slivers'' consists entirely of one-line poems.<ref>Hirsch, Edward 'A Poets Glossary' Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston 2014 ISBN 9780151011957</ref>

Founded in 2021, “Whiptail: Journal of the Single Line Poem” is a literary journal devoted solely to the monostich.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.whiptailjournal.com/about.html#/ | title=About | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211025123543/https://www.whiptailjournal.com/about.html#/ | archive-date=25 October 2021 }}</ref>

==See also== *Distich *Micropoetry *Monoku *Tristich

==References==

==External links== *[https://m.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/magpies-shadow] Monostich examples by Yvor Winters *[http://cordite.org.au/poetry/antiheroes/slivers Examples by Ian McBryde] *[https://www.academia.edu/3318916/zJohn_Ashbery_s_37_Haikiu_and_the_American_Haiku_Orthodoxy Article-on Ashbery '37 Haiku']

Category:Poetic forms