Poem fractal

Climbing Up

by D. H. Lawrence

11 September 1885 to 2 March 1930 (~45)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“One's action ought to come out of an achieved stillness: not to be a mere rushing on.”

Linking meaningful action with inward composure · Essay

More remarks (51)

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. John Dryden · 1.1486 − 0.3071i · 0.088 away · Compare side by side
  2. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. · 1.1309 − 0.5344i · 0.141 away · Compare side by side
  3. Francesco Petrarca · 1.1717 − 0.2473i · 0.149 away · Compare side by side
  4. Walter Savage Landor · 1.1183 − 0.2465i · 0.152 away · Compare side by side
  5. Federico García Lorca · 0.9830 − 0.3831i · 0.170 away · Compare side by side
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