Poem fractal

By the Weir

by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

2 June 1878 to 26 May 1962 (~84)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I was born into an unhappy household.”

Brief reflection on the emotional atmosphere of his early life · Letter to Walter de la Mare

More remarks (1)

Drawing the boundary…

Read the poem Another poem

A fractal is a shape that keeps its pattern when you look closer. Coastlines, trees, shells, and weather do this. A poem can be drawn the same way.

The poem’s constant is read from the build of its lines: their length, the size of the stanzas, and the share of vowels. Poems whose constants lie closer together are built more alike. The same poem always draws the same picture. Change the length of a line, the stanza, or the vowel share, and both the number and the picture move.

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.

Poems nearby in the constant

A smaller distance means the lines are built more alike.

  1. William Butler Yeats · −0.3034 + 0.9728i · 0.025 away · Compare side by side
  2. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. · −0.3077 + 0.9783i · 0.028 away · Compare side by side
  3. T. S. Eliot · −0.2751 + 0.9550i · 0.042 away · Compare side by side
  4. James Oppenheim · −0.2736 + 0.9553i · 0.044 away · Compare side by side
  5. G. K. Chesterton · −0.3612 + 0.9280i · 0.050 away · Compare side by side
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