Poem fractal

The Death Rooms

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. William Cowper · −0.6518 − 0.0488i · 0.020 away · Compare side by side
  2. Dylan Thomas · −0.6644 − 0.0433i · 0.023 away · Compare side by side
  3. Dylan Thomas · −0.6172 − 0.0137i · 0.033 away · Compare side by side
  4. T. Sturge Moore · −0.6562 − 0.0617i · 0.033 away · Compare side by side
  5. A. A. Milne · −0.5950 − 0.0241i · 0.051 away · Compare side by side
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