Poem fractal

The Lonely Hunter

by Fiona Macleod

12 September 1855 to 12 December 1905 (~50)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The silence of the hills is the voice of God.”

Finding spiritual presence in solitude and nature · Prose writing by Fiona Macleod

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. Walt Whitman · −0.0394 + 1.0690i · 0.027 away · Compare side by side
  2. John Townsend Trowbridge · −0.0151 + 1.0360i · 0.035 away · Compare side by side
  3. Banjo Paterson · −0.1020 + 1.0479i · 0.053 away · Compare side by side
  4. Thomas Babington Macaulay · 0.0044 + 1.0617i · 0.057 away · Compare side by side
  5. Edgar Lee Masters · −0.1090 + 1.0370i · 0.060 away · Compare side by side
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