Poem fractal

At the Last

by Fiona Macleod

12 September 1855 to 12 December 1905 (~50)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The soul has its own ears to hear things the mind does not understand.”

Affirming forms of spiritual knowledge beyond rational explanation · 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. Emily Dickinson · 0.4570 − 1.1597i · 0.026 away · Compare side by side
  2. Robert Nichols · 0.4587 − 1.1086i · 0.052 away · Compare side by side
  3. Sara Teasdale · 0.5278 − 1.1187i · 0.058 away · Compare side by side
  4. Emily Dickinson · 0.5021 − 1.2151i · 0.063 away · Compare side by side
  5. Dorothy Parker · 0.5347 − 1.1964i · 0.066 away · Compare side by side
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