Poem fractal

Clover

by John Banister Tabb

22 March 1845 to 19 November 1909 (~64)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I am not surprised that you, who are sojourning in a land where the cat was once worshiped, should desire to hear the mews (Muse) of the Tabb-y.”

Playful punning reply when asked for a copy of his poems · Letter to a correspondent in Egypt

More remarks (1)

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. Christina Rossetti · 0.3759 − 0.9198i · 0.019 away · Compare side by side
  2. Emily Dickinson · 0.3959 − 0.8523i · 0.052 away · Compare side by side
  3. A. Mary F. Robinson · 0.3472 − 0.8517i · 0.058 away · Compare side by side
  4. Hilda Doolittle · 0.3479 − 0.9545i · 0.062 away · Compare side by side
  5. Emily Dickinson · 0.3390 − 0.8515i · 0.063 away · Compare side by side
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