A monostich, according to Wikipedia, as good a place as any to start, is a poem which consists of a single line. It goes on to attempt to define the form: A monostich has been described as ‘a startling fragment that has its own integrity’ and ‘if a monostich has an argument, it is necessarily more subtle.’ A monostich, it continues, could be also titled; due to the brevity of the form, the title is invariably as important a part of the poem as the line itself. Some one-line poems, we are told, 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 ceasura’, and others having ‘ a rhythm, (as with one-line haiku), dividing easily into three phrases’.
Some examples of monostich (one-line poems) were created by such classic ancient authors as Martial in Latin. According to Edward Hirsh in his A Poet’s Glossary, “As the Greek Anthology (tenth century) illustrates, the monostich can be a proverb, an aphorism, an enigma, a fragment, an image.” Modern monostich was started in Russia in 1894 when Valery Bryusov published a one-line poem in the first issue of a new literary magazine. He revised it issue by issue until, in the fourth and final issue, aiming for a more concise and more concentrated poem, he presented this single line of pretty absurd poetry :
О закрой свои бледные ноги.
Oh, cover thy pale feet. (Translation by Babette Deutsch and Avraham Yarmolinsky.)
The first poet to produce monostich in the modern Western tradition was Guillaume Apollinaire, who included this poem in his 1913 book Alcools:
Chantre
Et l’unique cordeau des trompettes marines (5)
Singer
And the single string of the sea trumpets (Translation by William Meredith.)
An early English example is a one-line poem without a title by Ralph Hodgson (1871-1962):
‘Skunks,’ the squirrel said, ‘are sent to try us.’
A monostich can, however, be titled; due to the brevity of the form, the title is invariably as important a part of the poem as the line itself, as in this example from A. R. Ammons:
COWARD
Bravery runs in my family.
Yvor Winters may be well-known as a formal and conservative poet, but he began his career as an experimental poet, influenced by American Indian songs, imagist poetry and Japanese haiku. He told his friend, Kenneth Fields, “I was trying to beat the haiku poets at their own game.” Many of his early poems are examples of monostich. A sample is included below. More are available on the Yvor Winters Brief Poems post.
John Ashbery has been attracted to the monostich in two of his collections. In A Wave (1984) he has a poem or, more likely, a sequence of individual and individuised poems called “37 Haiku” . Of more interest to me are a few monostiches with capitalised titles contained in an earlier collection, As We Know (1979). Samples from both collections are included below.
William Matthews’ collection, An Oar in the Old Water (1976) contains a few poems in the monostich form that are witty and bounce off their titles. See below.
Allen Ginsberg, in the mid-1980′s, created his own version of the monostich as a response to the Japanese form, the haiku. He called these poems American Sentences. If haiku involved seventeen syllables down the page, he reasoned, American Sentences would be seventeen syllables across the page. It was his attempt, successful at times, to “Americanize” a Japanese form. Like (rough) English approximations of the haiku, American Sentences work closely with concision of line and sharpness of detail. Unlike its literary predecessor, however, it is compressed into a single line of poetry and often included a reference to a month and year (or alternatively, a location) rather than a season. Some of his more interesting examples are posted below.
Ian McBryde, an avant-garde, Canadian-born poet who lives in Melbourne, Australia, has a collection called Slivers (2005) which consists almost entirely of one-line poems. See below for a few examples.
Jane Hirshfield has created brief poems entitled Pebbles. She uses the word “Pebbles” to describe what she says in an interview with Brian Bouldrey are not haiku, but … short, slightly intransigent poems that require some response in the mind of the reader before they are finished. Some, as you can see below, are deceptively simple, such as Humbling: An Assay which is comprised of only two words: Have teeth. Each is meant to be read as an individual, free-standing poem, … They are not, she argues, quite the same thing as an aphorism, a haiku, an epigram. They have their own flavor, for me.
Carol Snow is an American poet whose collection Breath as: short poems (Em Press, 1994) is a book of twenty-five short poems of one to four lines in five sequences. The book contains both titled and untitled one-line poems. There is also a textless poem – What comfort? – for which there are, as Snow indicates with the blankness of her page, no possible words.
R. L. Barth fought as a young Marine in Vietnam in 1968-69. In a chapbook of poems, Ghost Story, one section entitled Snowfall in Vietnam: Poems/Maxims consists of ten one-line, five-syllable poems with accompanying titles, some of which are longer than the poems. Three examples are included below.
Whether a textless poem, a poem with a title and no text, can be called a monostich is a moot point. I have come across some interesting examples and include them in a final, separate section below. Jane Hirshfield calls hers – “My Silence” – an ellipsis poem. There’s a small lineage of poems that are only title … It’s a form that wants sparing usage, but my poem was genuinely, honestly written. It holds an unsayable grief. Its invisible ink depends on the reader recognizing that the whole book is the context for that silence.
Monostich – Martial
2.73
Quid faciat volt scire Lyris; quod sobria; fellat.
Lyris wants to know what she is doing; the same thing she does when sober; sucking dick.
***
7.98
Omni, Castor, emis: sic fiet, ut omnia vendas.
You buy everything, Castor. This way you’ll end up selling everything.
***
8.19
Pauper videri Cinna vult; et est pauper.
Cinna wants to seem poor and he is.
______
Other translations of this one-line poem and other translations of Martial are available on the Bedside Lamps – Brief Poems by Martial post.
Monostich – Yvor Winters
Winter Echo
Thin air! My mind is gone.
***
Spring Song
My doorframe smells of leaves.
***
God of Roads
I, peregrine of noon.
***
Noon
Did you move, in the sun?
Monostich – John Ashbery
THE CATHEDRAL IS
slated for demolition.
***
I HAD THOUGHT THINGS WERE GOING ALONG WELL
But I was mistaken.
***
OUT OVER THE BAY THE RATTLE OF FIRECRACKERS
And, in the adjacent waters, calm.
***
WE WERE ON THE TERRACE DRINKING GIN AND TONICS
When the squall hit.
These four poems are from As We Know (1979)
***
from 37 HAIKU
Night occurs dimmer each time with the pieces of light smaller and squarer
A blue anchor grains of grit in a tall sky sewing
The wedding was enchanted everyone was glad to be in it
Monostich – William Matthews
Sleep
border with no country
***
“To Thine Own Self Be True”
As if you had a choice
***
Premature Ejaculation
I’m sorry this poem’s already finished
***
Physics
Is death curved, like the universe?
***
Silence
All bells hate their clappers
***
Snow
The dead are dreaming of breathing
Monostich – Allen Ginsberg
Tompkins Square Lower East Side N.Y.
Four skinheads stand in the streetlight rain chatting under an umbrella.
***
Approaching Seoul by Bus in Heavy Rain
Get used to your body, forget you were born, suddenly you get to get out.
***
Taxi ghosts at dusk pass Monoprix in Paris 20 years ago.
***:
Crescent moon, girls chatter at twilight on the bus ride to Ankara.
***
Put on my tie in a taxi, short of breath, rushing to meditate.
***
That grey-haired man in business suit and black turtleneck thinks he’s still young.
***
Rainy night on Union Square, full moon. Want more poems? Wait till I’m dead.
Monostich – Ian McBryde
White noise carries too many messages.
***
Night gathers across the river.
***
Relax. I kept my word, burned the negatives.
***
Memories of the bomb still mushroom within us.
***
Somewhere in Texas, farmhouses are burning.
***
I have climbed inside Siberia, and now await you.
***
Hours later, the ashes stirring by themselves.
***
There are more than fourteen stations of the cross.
***
Ravens outdate us, but we still forget.
Monostich – Jane Hirshfield
Sentence
The body of a starving horse cannot forget the size it was born to.
***
Humbling: An Assay
Have teeth.
***
My Failure
I said of the view: “just some trees.”
***
More brief poems by Jane Hirshfield are available on the Pebbles – Jane Hirshfield post.
Monostich – Carol Snow
For K.
Then Kathy—”Is that mine?”—ran out to the crying in the yard.
***
Be Brief
“—necessitated, you know, by his impairments—”
***
At the Beach
But kept “—then threw back the shell.”
***
Elegy
And now that I can no longer…—no longer have to—visit him…
***
Breath As
tidal—ardor…fervor…horror…as moon…—
***
More brief poems by Carol Snow are available on the Goldfish Pond – Carol Snow post.
Monostich – R. L. Barth
Snowfall in Vietnam
Leaflets fill the sky.
***
A Chateau in the Foothills
Are these stains French blood?
***
Death
I am breathing—still.
***
More brief poems by R. L. Barth are available on the Dog Tags – R. L. Barth post.
Monostich – Assorted Examples
Down the long desolate street of stars.
T. E. Hulme
***
The bloom of the grape has gone.
T. E. Hulme
***
COWARD
Bravery runs in my family.
A. R. Ammons
***
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
Ernest Hemingway
***
EPIDEMIC
Streamers of crepe idling before doors.
Charles Reznikoff
***
APHRODITE VRANIA
The ceaseless weaving of the uneven water.
Charles Reznikoff
***
Someone I tell you will remember us.
Sappho (translated by J. V. Cunningham)
***
HILL
Top
Ian Hamilton Finlay
***
LOST
my lost lamb lovelier than all the wool.
Michael Longley
***
SIESTA OF A HUNGARIAN SNAKE
s sz sz SZ sz SZ sz ZS zs Zs zs zs z
Edwin Morgan
***
WILTED TULIPS
split little puppet pulpits tilted spilling dew
Craig Dworkin
***
Now I love you again because of these roosters
Ron Padgett
***
If only you knew how to ignore me.
Ron Padgett
The clanking and wanking of Her Majesty’s Prison.
Gavin Ewart
***
THE LOVER WRITES A ONE-WORD POEM
You!
Gavin Ewart
***
A PERSON
She’s mean and full of minge-water.
Gavin Ewart
***
SCATTER
All that’s left of coherence.
Robert Creeley
***
3 Minims
EPITAPH ON A SCHOOL OF FICTION
They wrote about what they knew. It didn’t take long.
SPRING
Bees to the Flowers, Flies to Shit.
A LONG FAREWELL
Goodbye, said the river, I’m going downstream.
Howard Nemerov
***
ELEGY
Who would I show it to
W. S. Merwin
***
Savonarola
Unable to endure my world and calling the failure God, I will destroy yours.
W. S. Merwin
***
CELL PHONE BITCH SLAP
The end of the world may require some lifestyle changes
Joel Dailey
***
a dixie cup floats down the Nile
Cor van den Heuvel
***
University Days
this book has been removed for further study
Tom Raworth
***
8.06pm June 10 1970
poem
Tom Raworth
***
FOUND
These sleeping tablets may cause drowsiness.
Peter Reading
***
t w i l i g h t b l u e & p a l e g r e e n l e a v e s e v e r y w h e r e s c e n t o f w a t e r m e l o n s
Anita Virgil
**
LOSER
He was at the airport when his ship came in.
Joe Brainard
***
sonnet xxiv
i know the alteration that is love
Olena Kalytiak Davis
shadows darkening three-sevenths of her face in sunlight
Elizabeth Searle Lamb
***
Forgive these words, they are not birds.
Cora Brooks
***
GHOST STORY
‘Listen hard enough and you wake the dead.’
Mark Granier
***
after the garden party the garden
Ruth Yarrow
***
starrynightIenteryourmirror
Alexis Rotella
***
swans stir of his breath against my hair
Alexis Rotella
***
COMING HOME
Even the sunlight is a smell you remembered.
Fred Chappell
***
i hope i’m right where the river ice ends
Jim Kacian
***
After You Die You Don’t Give a Piddling Damn
I do, Lord, I do. Therefore I am.
Miller Williams
A CARROT
I wanted to find a little yellow candlelight in the garden
Alfred Starr Hamilton
***
the thyme-scented morning lizard’s tongue flicking out
Martin Lucas
***
Bygones
The rain has stopped falling asleep on its crystal stems
Charles Wright
***
SIMPLES
What do I want? Well, I want to get better.
Marie Ponsot
***
BLISS AND GRIEF
No one is here right now.
Marie Ponsot
***
CICADA
I am still trying to see your song
Bill Manhire
***
FIEL
Love me, love me with two hands & no rearview.
Aracelis Girmay
***
ON THE INEVITABLE DECLINE INTO MEDIOCRITY OF THE POPULAR MUSICIAN WHO ATTAINS A COMFORTABLE MIDDLE AGE
O Sting, where is thy death?
David Musgrave
***
FOUND SINGLE-LINE POEMS
Turning Eighty-Eight, a Birthday Poem:
It is a breathtaking, near death experience.
___
Found Poem:
You ain’t seen Nothing yet.
___
Found Poem:
We’re all in this apart.
___
A Subtitle:
Playing With My Self
David Ferry
***
Thumb
The odd, friendless boy raised by four aunts.
Philip Dacey
***
ARTICHOKE
O heart weighed down by so many wings!
Joseph Hutchinson
AT THE COUNTY MORGUE
Before they fold the cover back you know.
Adam Tavel
***
GOOD POEM
Stay
Tom Snarsky
The smaller the heart the swifter the wings.
Suzanne Buffam
***
ON WHITE FLOWERS
By moonlight the lily dominates the field.
Suzanne Buffam
***
FATE
Everyone’s blind date.
Charles Simic
***
THE SOCIOLOGIST
I wandered lonely as a crowd.
Billy Collins
***
SUICIDE NOTE*
I could not simplify myself.
*Found poem
Agha Shahid Ali
***
THE MAP OF ITSELF
The idea of travel. The very idea.
Brenda Shaughnessy
***
SONNET
I sing as if I’m singing what I’m eating from a knife.
Graham Foust
***
AND THE GHOSTS
They own everything
Graham Foust
***
Elegy
Someone is already forgetting me.
Conor Kelly
Textless Poems
In Memory of the Horse David Who Ate One of my Poems
James Wright
***
What Comfort?
Carol Snow
***
On Going to Meet a Zen Master in the Kyushu Mountains and Not Finding Him (For A.G.)
Don Paterson
***
If I Had A Gun
Pamela August Russell
***
Poem, on a Nude, from the Ballet, to Debussy’s Prelude L’Apres-Midi D’un Faune, after Mallarme’s L’apres-Midi D’un Faune
Dudley Randall
***
My Silence
Jane Hirshfield
***
This Poem Intentionally Left Blank
Charles Bernstein
***
Telepathy
Adam Wyeth
***
Poem about all the Space I Told My Husband I Needed
Leontia Flynn
LINKS
Camille Martin’s interesting and informative article on The Humble Monostich from her Rogue Embryo post.
Some monostich from Yvor Winters on the Brief Poems site.
“Short Poems: Mini, Micro and Nano” from the Illustrated Poetry blog.
“From one line poems to one line haiku” on the Simply Haiku site.
Paul E. Nelson’s site, created to present and foster a poetic form created by Allen Ginsberg, known as American Sentences.
Brief Poems 
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