Poem fractal

Field Asters

by Herman Melville

1 August 1819 to 28 September 1891 (~72)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its jagged edges.”

Recognising that honest truth may be difficult rather than polished · Essay

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 · 0.1109 − 0.8284i · 0.008 away · Compare side by side
  2. William Wordsworth · 0.0976 − 0.8192i · 0.013 away · Compare side by side
  3. Emily Dickinson · 0.1043 − 0.8508i · 0.020 away · Compare side by side
  4. Lewis Carroll · 0.1201 − 0.8170i · 0.022 away · Compare side by side
  5. Emily Dickinson · 0.1038 − 0.8536i · 0.023 away · Compare side by side
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