Poem fractal

Pearce did dance with Petronella

by Giles Farnaby

c. 1563 to November 1640 (~77)

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. Nora Hopper Chesson · −0.6119 − 0.5358i · 0.015 away · Compare side by side
  2. Amelia Alderson Opie · −0.6164 − 0.5266i · 0.023 away · Compare side by side
  3. Langston Hughes · −0.5723 − 0.5711i · 0.050 away · Compare side by side
  4. Otto Leland Bohanan · −0.6012 − 0.5019i · 0.050 away · Compare side by side
  5. Robert Bridges · −0.6549 − 0.5846i · 0.052 away · Compare side by side
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