Poem fractal

O Summer sun

by Laurence Binyon

10 August 1869 to 10 March 1943 (~74)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The power of rhythm is such that not only sounds and forms and colours, but the meanings associated with them become different, take on a new life.”

Describing rhythm as a force that transforms both form and meaning. · Essay, The Flight of the Dragon (1911)

More remarks (39)

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. A.E.Housman · 0.0887 + 0.1639i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
  2. John Donne · 0.0954 + 0.1507i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
  3. Edgar A. Guest · 0.0605 + 0.1661i · 0.024 away · Compare side by side
  4. Edgar A. Guest · 0.0988 + 0.1716i · 0.029 away · Compare side by side
  5. Helen Hamilton · 0.1162 + 0.1449i · 0.038 away · Compare side by side
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