Poem fractal

When Acorns Fall

by Alfred Austin

30 May 1835 to 2 June 1913 (~78)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The worst thing about a poet is that, when he gets a little drunk, he gets a little poetical.”

A wry observation about the self-consciousness that can accompany poetic identity · Conversation / commonly attributed

More remarks (3)

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. Witter Bynner · −0.6142 + 0.7209i · 0.020 away · Compare side by side
  2. Charles Tennyson Turner · −0.6249 + 0.7335i · 0.035 away · Compare side by side
  3. Elizabeth Barrett Browning · −0.6186 + 0.7366i · 0.036 away · Compare side by side
  4. William Wordsworth · −0.6532 + 0.6965i · 0.040 away · Compare side by side
  5. Edna St. Vincent Millay · −0.6577 + 0.7016i · 0.044 away · Compare side by side
—
—
0:00
0:00
Track 1
Skip to main content