Poem fractal

The Seeker

by James Stephens

2 February 1882 to 26 December 1950 (~68)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The imagination is the one thing besides honesty that a human being should have.”

Linking creative vision with moral integrity · Prose remark, commonly attributed to James Stephens

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. George Herbert · −0.2070 − 0.3393i · 0.003 away · Compare side by side
  2. Arthur Hugh Clough · −0.2022 − 0.3428i · 0.009 away · Compare side by side
  3. Charles Mackay · −0.2146 − 0.3473i · 0.010 away · Compare side by side
  4. William Wordsworth · −0.2008 − 0.3342i · 0.010 away · Compare side by side
  5. Paul Laurence Dunbar · −0.2060 − 0.3484i · 0.011 away · Compare side by side
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