Poem fractal
0.039 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 Leigh Hunt
0.1296 − 0.3533i
Drawing the boundary…
by Isobel Pagan
0.0971 − 0.3315i
Drawing the boundary…
Each poem scrolls on its own, so the two texts stay beside each other.
by Leigh Hunt
Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in:
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
Jenny kissed me.
by Isobel Pagan
Where my swain so blythe and clever,
Why does he leave me all in sorrow,
Three long days has gone forever,
Since he swore he would call to-morrow.
O had he lov'd but half as I do,
He would come with his looks so bonny,
Love has flying wings I well know,
But none for the lingering lazy Johnny.
What can he now be a-doing,
Is he with some lassie staying,
He had better have been wooing,
As with others fondly straying.
Tell me truly where he's roving,
That I may no longer sorrow,
If he's wearied grown of loving,
He may tell me so the morrow.
Hath some favourite rival hid him,
She may be the happy creature,
I'll not ease myself to chide him,
Nor dispute with her for feature.
I neither can, nor will not tarry,
Nor will I sink myself in sorrow,
I may lose the time to marry,
If Johnny waits beyond the morrow.
Gentle shepherd, don't deceive me,
If you love me stay no longer,
And if you wont, another may have me,
Love may cool, 'twill ne'er grow stronger.
Lasses when your lads forsake you,
Sink not in despairing sorrow,
Blest another lad may make you,
Wait for none beyond to-morrow.
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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