Poem fractal

The West Wind

by John Masefield

1 June 1878 to 12 May 1967 (~89)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The world is round, and the place which may seem like the end may also be the beginning.”

A hopeful reflection on endings as possible beginnings · Prose writing, commonly attributed

More remarks (4)

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. Gerard Manley Hopkins · −0.2349 + 0.7551i · 0.032 away · Compare side by side
  2. Emma Lazarus · −0.2892 + 0.7849i · 0.032 away · Compare side by side
  3. Ralph Waldo Emerson · −0.2570 + 0.8112i · 0.035 away · Compare side by side
  4. Dylan Thomas · −0.2210 + 0.7833i · 0.038 away · Compare side by side
  5. Alfred Lord Tennyson · −0.2071 + 0.7724i · 0.051 away · Compare side by side
—
—
0:00
0:00
Track 1
Skip to main content