Poem fractal

They

by Siegfried Sassoon

8 September 1886 to 1 September 1967 (~81)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The nation is being sacrificed to the vanity and self-interest of the politicians.”

Condemning public policy pursued at the expense of human lives · 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. Nora Hopper Chesson · −0.3966 + 0.4445i · 0.002 away · Compare side by side
  2. Richard · −0.4087 + 0.4371i · 0.015 away · Compare side by side
  3. Christina Rossetti · −0.3907 + 0.4260i · 0.021 away · Compare side by side
  4. Gerard Manley Hopkins · −0.3716 + 0.4442i · 0.025 away · Compare side by side
  5. Maxwell Bodenheim · −0.3625 + 0.4439i · 0.035 away · Compare side by side
—
—
0:00
0:00
Track 1
Skip to main content