Poem fractal
0.016 apart. A smaller distance means the lines are built more alike.
This number is read from the build of the lines. The bright edge is that number, carried outward until the pattern repeats.
by John Cooper
−0.1936 − 0.5252i
Drawing the boundary…
−0.2065 − 0.5150i
Drawing the boundary…
Each poem scrolls on its own, so the two texts stay beside each other.
by John Cooper
Oft thou hast with greedy ear
Drunk my notes and words of pleasure;
In affection's equal measure
Now my songs of sorrow hear,
Since from thee my griefs do grow,
Whom alive I prized so dear.
The more my joy, the more my woe.
Music, though it sweetens pain,
Yet no whit impairs lamenting,
But in passions like consenting
Makes them constant that complain,
And enchants their fancies so
That all comforts they disdain,
And fly from joy to dwell with woe.
He rose at dawn and, fired with hope,
Shot o'er the seething harbor-bar,
And reach'd the ship and caught the rope,
And whistled to the morning star.
And while he whistled long and loud
He heard a fierce mermaiden cry,
'O boy, tho' thou art young and proud,
I see the place where thou wilt lie.
'The sands and yeasty surges mix
In caves about the dreary bay,
And on thy ribs the limpet sticks,
And in thy heart the scrawl shall play.'
'Fool,' he answer'd, 'death is sure
To those that stay and those that roam,
But I will nevermore endure
To sit with empty hands at home.
'My mother clings about my neck,
My sisters crying "stay for shame;"
My father raves of death and wreck,
They are all to blame, they are all to blame.
'God help me! save I take my part
Of danger in the roaring sea,
A devil rises in my heart,
Far worse than any death to me.'
A fractal is a shape that keeps its pattern when you look closer. Coastlines, trees, shells, and weather do this. The large form and the small form are the same kind of thing. A poem can be drawn that way. The shape of the whole comes from the shape of the lines.
Primunia is the name for the source of that order: the pattern under the pattern, already there in a tree, a shell, and a verse.
The number under the picture is the poem constant. It is read from the build of the lines: their length, how uneven they are, the size of the stanzas, the share of vowels, and the way the lines end. A new word moves the number when it changes that build. The same poem always gives the same number.
Drawn on its own, that number sits in a quiet part of the plane, and most poems would look like the same soft disk. So the number is carried outward along its own direction until it meets the edge of the Mandelbrot set, where the shape turns sharp. The picture is the Julia set of that meeting place.
Each point on the canvas is folded again and again by one small rule. Points that stay near the rule form the dark interior. Points that rush away become the coloured bands. The hue comes from the poem constant, and the brightest bands turn toward gold. Change the length of a line, the stanza, or the vowel share, and both the number and the picture move.
Branching draws the poem as a tree. Each turn follows a line, and every smaller branch repeats that pattern. A longer line reaches farther. The letters at the start of a line bend the next turn. A higher share of vowels opens the branches wider.
The trunk takes its colour from the poem constant and warms toward gold at the tips. When the poem has more than one stanza, gold forks leave the trunk. Each fork is a stanza beyond the first, up to three. The tree divides where the poem divides. One stanza remains a single trunk.
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