Poem fractal

When Bony Death

by John Masefield

1 June 1878 to 12 May 1967 (~89)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“There is no such thing as a good sailor, only a sailor who has had good luck.”

A wry acknowledgement of chance and experience at sea · Conversation, 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. John Boyle O'Reilly · −0.3420 − 0.0392i · 0.004 away · Compare side by side
  2. John Ward · −0.3389 − 0.0348i · 0.005 away · Compare side by side
  3. Dylan Thomas · −0.3498 − 0.0472i · 0.014 away · Compare side by side
  4. James Edwin Campbell · −0.3516 − 0.0320i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
  5. Christina Rossetti · −0.3478 − 0.0272i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
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