Poem fractal

The Fish

by Marianne Moore

15 November 1887 to 5 February 1972 (~85)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence; not in silence, but restraint.”

Valuing controlled intensity over unbridled display · Prose observations on expression

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. Frances E. W. Harper · −0.5024 − 0.7673i · 0.008 away · Compare side by side
  2. Richard · −0.5281 − 0.7621i · 0.019 away · Compare side by side
  3. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · −0.4924 − 0.7612i · 0.019 away · Compare side by side
  4. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · −0.5208 − 0.7421i · 0.028 away · Compare side by side
  5. Barry Cornwall · −0.4813 − 0.7721i · 0.029 away · Compare side by side
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