Poem fractal

Died of Wounds

by Siegfried Sassoon

8 September 1886 to 1 September 1967 (~81)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I believe the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.”

A direct condemnation of political responsibility for continued suffering · Open letter / statement, 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. Edna St. Vincent Millay · −0.2062 + 0.1541i · 0.005 away · Compare side by side
  2. Dylan Thomas · −0.2086 + 0.1441i · 0.005 away · Compare side by side
  3. John Donne · −0.1986 + 0.1512i · 0.009 away · Compare side by side
  4. Nora Hopper Chesson · −0.2113 + 0.1303i · 0.019 away · Compare side by side
  5. William Cullen Bryant · −0.1980 + 0.1663i · 0.019 away · Compare side by side
—
—
0:00
0:00
Track 1
Skip to main content