Poem fractal

Weep, O mine eyes

by John Bennet

c. 1575 to c. 1614 (~39)

Browse poets 678

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. A. A. Milne · 0.9704 − 0.1255i · 0.060 away · Compare side by side
  2. Robert Southwell · 0.8393 − 0.1436i · 0.073 away · Compare side by side
  3. Edward Lear · 0.8266 − 0.0482i · 0.116 away · Compare side by side
  4. Isaac Rosenberg · 1.0275 − 0.1534i · 0.120 away · Compare side by side
  5. Helen Hoyt · 0.7654 − 0.1682i · 0.150 away · Compare side by side
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