Poem fractal

Vale

by Catherine Pozzi

13 July 1882 to 3 December 1934 (~52)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Je ne veux pas être heureuse, je veux être entière.”

Expressing a desire for wholeness and authenticity rather than uncomplicated happiness · Journal, 1913–1934

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. Nora Hopper Chesson · 0.7966 − 0.3381i · 0.023 away · Compare side by side
  2. Josephine Preston Peabody · 0.7653 − 0.3270i · 0.051 away · Compare side by side
  3. Edgar A. Guest · 0.8152 − 0.3893i · 0.063 away · Compare side by side
  4. Cale Young Rice · 0.8067 − 0.2565i · 0.071 away · Compare side by side
  5. Francesco Petrarca · 0.8778 − 0.3666i · 0.073 away · Compare side by side
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