Poem fractal
0.037 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.
−0.1476 − 0.3185i
Drawing the boundary…
by Arthur Macy
−0.1119 − 0.3089i
Drawing the boundary…
Each poem scrolls on its own, so the two texts stay beside each other.
Quhy sowld I luve bot gif I war luvit?
Quhy sowld I sett myne hert in variance?
Quhy sowld I do the thing to be reprovit?
Vnto my spreit it war richt grit grevance.
Quhy sowld I schamefully thus me avance
To lovin on, and scho not loving me?
Than war I gydit with misgovirnance,
That I sowld luve and I not lovit be.
by Arthur Macy
I'm a tough old salt, and it's never I care
A penny which way the wind is,
Or whether I sight Cape Finisterre,
Or make a port at the Indies.
Some folks steer for a port to trade,
And some steer north for the whaling;
Yet never I care a damn just where
I sail, so long's I'm sailing.
You never can stop the wind when it blows,
And you can't stop the rain from raining;
Then why, oh, why, go a-piping of your eye
When there's no sort o' use in complaining?
My face is browned and my lungs are sound,
And my hands they are big and calloused.
I've a little brown jug I sometimes hug,
And a little bread and meat for ballast.
But I keep no log of my daily grog,
For what's the use o' being bothered?
I drink a little more when the wind's offshore,
And most when the wind's from the no'th'ard.
Of course with a chill if I'm took quite ill,
And my legs get weak and toddly,
At the jug I pull, and turn in full,
And sleep the sleep of the godly.
But whether I do or whether I don't,
Or whether the jug's my failing,
It's never I care a damn just where
I sail, so long's I'm sailing.
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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