Poem fractal

Caminante, no hay camino

by Antonio Machado

26 July 1875 to 22 February 1939 (~64)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“La poesía es el diálogo del hombre, de un hombre con su tiempo.”

Defining poetry as a living exchange between an individual and an age · Juan de Mairena, prose reflection on poetry

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. Alfred Kreymborg · 1.0492 − 0.7698i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
  2. Antonio Machado · 0.9641 − 0.8072i · 0.108 away · Compare side by side
  3. Nora Hopper Chesson · 0.9611 − 0.8133i · 0.113 away · Compare side by side
  4. Langston Hughes · 1.0313 − 0.8833i · 0.119 away · Compare side by side
  5. Pierre de Ronsard · 0.9399 − 0.8451i · 0.146 away · Compare side by side
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