Poem fractal
0.047 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 Walt Whitman
0.0406 + 1.5656i
Drawing the boundary…
0.0868 + 1.5583i
Drawing the boundary…
Each poem scrolls on its own, so the two texts stay beside each other.
by Walt Whitman
As if a phantom caress’d me,
I thought I was not alone walking here by the shore;
But the one I thought was with me as now I walk by the shore, the one I loved that caress’d me,
As I lean and look through the glimmering light, that one has utterly disappear’d.
And those appear that are hateful to me and mock me.
Where gripyng grief the hart would wound & dolfull domps the oppresse
There Musick with her siluer soud, is wont with spede to giue redresse,
Of troubled minde for euery sore, swete Musick hath a salue therfore.
In ioye it maks our mirth abound, in grief it chers our heauy sprights,
The carefull head release hath found, by Musicks pleasant swete delights
Our sences, what should I saie more, are subiect vnto Musicks lore.
The Godds by Musick hath their praie, the foule therein doeth ioye,
For as the Romaine Poets saie, in seas whom Pirats would destroye,
A Dolphin saued from death moste sharpe, Arion plaiyng on his harpe.
A heauenly gift, that turnes the minde, like as the sterne doth rule the ship,
Musick whom the Gods assignde to comfort man, whom cares would nip,
Sith thou both man & beast doest moue, what wiseman then wil thee reproue.
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.
Install V2Melody
Add a home-screen icon for quicker listening in a simple app window.