Poem fractal

The Rear-Guard

by Siegfried Sassoon

8 September 1886 to 1 September 1967 (~81)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I believe that it may be possible to make the sufferings of the men less acute by exposing the callousness and insincerity of the politicians.”

Linking truthful speech with responsibility towards soldiers · Open letter, 1917

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. Ella Wheeler Wilcox · −0.4154 + 0.1896i · 0.010 away · Compare side by side
  2. Edwin Arlington Robinson · −0.4247 + 0.1689i · 0.025 away · Compare side by side
  3. Dylan Thomas · −0.4385 + 0.2195i · 0.029 away · Compare side by side
  4. Thomas Moore · −0.4190 + 0.2308i · 0.037 away · Compare side by side
  5. Hart Crane · −0.4126 + 0.1570i · 0.039 away · Compare side by side
—
—
0:00
0:00
Track 1
Skip to main content