Poem fractal

I met a seer

by Stephen Crane

1 November 1871 to 5 June 1900 (~29)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The word poet continually reminds me of long-hair and seems to me a most detestable form of insult.”

Rejecting conventional poetic affectation in favour of plain 'lines' · Conversation or letter (commonly attested)

More remarks (27)

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. Anne Brontë · −0.1667 − 0.7433i · 0.013 away · Compare side by side
  2. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · −0.1634 − 0.7162i · 0.015 away · Compare side by side
  3. A.E.Housman · −0.1513 − 0.7232i · 0.020 away · Compare side by side
  4. Robert Herrick · −0.1881 − 0.7388i · 0.020 away · Compare side by side
  5. Arthur Symons · −0.1534 − 0.7439i · 0.021 away · Compare side by side
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