Poem fractal

Cargoes

by John Masefield

1 June 1878 to 12 May 1967 (~89)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The days that make us happy make us wise.”

Suggesting that lived joy can deepen understanding · Prose remark, commonly attributed

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. Herbert Gorman · −0.3474 − 0.0818i · 0.011 away · Compare side by side
  2. Celia Thaxter · −0.3412 − 0.0818i · 0.014 away · Compare side by side
  3. Nora Hopper Chesson · −0.3357 − 0.1109i · 0.022 away · Compare side by side
  4. Letitia Elizabeth Landon · −0.3326 − 0.1089i · 0.023 away · Compare side by side
  5. Robert Herrick · −0.3732 − 0.0916i · 0.024 away · Compare side by side
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