Poem fractal

Heap ruby upon amethyst,

by Manmohan Ghose

19 January 1869 to 4 January 1924 (~55)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I am still writing verse, but have done nothing worthy to send you... I sincerely doubt whether I should ever write a poem of any length.”

A revealing moment of artistic self-doubt from a poet still developing his voice · Letter to Laurence Binyon, Oxford period

More remarks (13)

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. John Ford · 0.1066 − 0.6051i · 0.005 away · Compare side by side
  2. Emily Dickinson · 0.1043 − 0.6036i · 0.005 away · Compare side by side
  3. Thomas Moore · 0.1080 − 0.6285i · 0.020 away · Compare side by side
  4. John Drinkwater · 0.1240 − 0.5920i · 0.027 away · Compare side by side
  5. D. H. Lawrence · 0.0883 − 0.5850i · 0.028 away · Compare side by side
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