Parataxis
Quick answer: Parataxis is a style that places clauses side by side without subordination, letting short statements sit as equals. Definition, examples and poetry tips.
Parataxis is a style of writing that places clauses or sentences side by side as equals, without subordinating one to another. Instead of 'Because the storm came, we stayed inside', a paratactic writer says 'The storm came. We stayed inside.' The logic between the statements is left for the reader to supply. The word is Greek for 'placing side by side'.
Poets prize parataxis because the gaps between plain statements are charged spaces. When a poem refuses to say 'because' or 'although', the reader does that connective work, and the meaning they build feels earned rather than delivered. Much of the flat, haunting power of modern free verse, and of translated ancient texts, comes from exactly this refusal to rank one clause above another.
How It Works
Grammar offers two ways to join thoughts: coordination and subordination. Parataxis takes the first road or no road at all, setting statements next to each other with 'and', a comma, or a full stop. An original example: 'My father sold the car. The garden went to seed. Nobody said the word money.' No clause explains another, yet a whole family economy stands behind the three sentences.
The effect depends on juxtaposition. Two plain statements placed together imply a relation, and because it is implied rather than stated, the relation can stay ambiguous: cause, contrast, sequence or bitter coincidence. That ambiguity is a feature, not a flaw.
Where You Will See It
Hebrew scripture in the King James translation moves paratactically, clause after clause joined by 'and'. Hemingway made parataxis the sound of modern prose. In poetry, the Imagists built the method into doctrine: Ezra Pound's two-line 'In a Station of the Metro' simply places a crowd's faces beside petals on a bough and lets the reader fuse them. Much contemporary minimalist poetry, and most haiku in translation, works the same way.
How to Use It in Your Own Poems
Draft a passage normally, then strike out every 'because', 'although', 'so that' and 'which'. See what survives. Often the poem breathes better without its explanations, and readers report feeling trusted. Keep your statements concrete; parataxis starves abstract writing, since there is no syntax left to prop it up.
Watch the order of statements carefully. With no subordination, sequence is your only logic, so swapping two sentences can reverse a poem's meaning.
What poets can take from this
- Cut subordinating words in revision and see whether the poem improves.
- Keep paratactic statements concrete; images survive the gaps, arguments do not.
- Use sentence order as your logic, since nothing else signals cause or contrast.
- Vary sentence length so the style reads as chosen, not monotone.
- Reserve one subordinate clause for the moment that truly needs explaining.
Try it yourself
Write a poem about a family meal using only simple sentences of ten words or fewer, none of them subordinate to another. Let the tension live entirely in what sits next to what.
Questions
What is the difference between parataxis and hypotaxis?
Parataxis places clauses side by side as equals; hypotaxis ranks them, using subordinate clauses to show cause, condition or time. 'Night fell. We left.' is paratactic; 'When night fell, we left.' is hypotactic.
Is parataxis the same as asyndeton?
They overlap but differ in scope. Asyndeton is specifically the omission of conjunctions. Parataxis is a broader structural style of non-subordination, and it can use conjunctions like 'and' freely, as biblical prose does.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
Enter a Writory poetry contest
Enter the September contest and have your own poem read and scored. That first entry makes you a Writorian.