Poem fractal

Resentment

by George Marion McClellan

29 September 1860 to 17 May 1934 (~74)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The English speaking people of both continents will read it if it is written by a master. It will make no difference.”

Expressing confidence that genuinely accomplished writing can transcend racial and national boundaries. · Essay, The Negro as a Writer

More remarks (9)

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. Richard · 0.2204 − 0.5313i · 0.008 away · Compare side by side
  2. Dylan Thomas · 0.2078 − 0.5297i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
  3. Wilfrid Scawen Blunt · 0.2124 − 0.5447i · 0.023 away · Compare side by side
  4. Emily Dickinson · 0.1925 − 0.5338i · 0.032 away · Compare side by side
  5. Sir Henry Taylor · 0.2080 − 0.5526i · 0.032 away · Compare side by side
—
—
0:00
0:00
Track 1
Skip to main content