Poem fractal
0.027 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 Helen Hoyt
0.2099 − 0.4438i
Drawing the boundary…
by Aphra Behn
0.2288 − 0.4239i
Drawing the boundary…
Each poem scrolls on its own, so the two texts stay beside each other.
by Helen Hoyt
He whistled soft whistlings I knew were for me,
Teasing, endearing.
Won’t you look? was what they said,
But I did not turn my head.
(Only a little I turned my hearing.)
My feet took me by;
Straight and evenly they went:
As if they had not dreamed what he meant:
As if such a curiosity
Never were known since the world began
As woman wanting man!
My heart led me past and took me away;
And yet it was my heart that wanted to stay.
by Aphra Behn
While, Iris, I at distance gaze,
And feed my greedy eyes,
That wounded heart, that dies for you,
Dull gazing can't suffice;
Hope is the food of love-sick minds,
On that alone 'twill feast,
The nobler part which loves refines,
No other can digest.
In vain, too nice and charming maid,
I did suppress my cares;
In vain my rising sighs I stayed,
And stopped my falling tears;
The flood would swell, the tempest rise,
As my despair came on;
When from her lovely cruel eyes,
I found I was undone.
Yet at your feet while thus I lie,
And languish by your eyes,
'Tis far more glorious here to die,
Than gain another prize.
Here let me sigh, here let me gaze,
And wish at least to find
As raptured nights, and tender days,
As he to whom you're kind.
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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