Poem fractal

Her Eyes

by John Crowe Ransom

30 April 1888 to 3 July 1974 (~86)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I know I can write better poems than I’ve ever written; I know how to write my poems. But I want to be an amateur.”

The desire to preserve freedom and pleasure in writing even when further achievement remains possible. · Conversation with Robert Penn Warren, as recalled by Warren

More remarks (28)

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. Lord Byron · 0.1856 − 0.7683i · 0.011 away · Compare side by side
  2. Ernest Dowson · 0.2107 − 0.7713i · 0.020 away · Compare side by side
  3. William Blake · 0.2014 − 0.7308i · 0.031 away · Compare side by side
  4. Richard Le Gallienne · 0.1651 − 0.7757i · 0.032 away · Compare side by side
  5. Emily Brontë · 0.1594 − 0.7664i · 0.034 away · Compare side by side
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