Poem fractal

Minstrel Man

by Langston Hughes

1 February 1902 to 22 May 1967 (~65)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Most musicians remain poor. But the music that they make, even if it does not bring them millions, gives millions of people happiness.”

Separating the human value of music from the financial rewards given its makers · Biographical writing on musicians

More remarks (92)

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 · 0.5853 − 1.1523i · 0.111 away · Compare side by side
  2. Dorothy Parker · 0.5347 − 1.1964i · 0.126 away · Compare side by side
  3. Thomas Hardy · 0.6657 − 1.3904i · 0.152 away · Compare side by side
  4. Emily Dickinson · 0.5021 − 1.2151i · 0.153 away · Compare side by side
  5. William Blake · 0.8018 − 1.1809i · 0.160 away · Compare side by side
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