Poem fractal

My Picture

by Abraham Cowley

1618 to 28 July 1667 (~49)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“He that desires to live well, should strive to live obscurely.”

Advocating for the quiet peace of a private life far from public scrutiny · Essay, Of Obscurity

More remarks (30)

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. Hart Crane · −0.1427 − 0.1837i · 0.021 away · Compare side by side
  2. Celia Thaxter · −0.1486 − 0.1624i · 0.025 away · Compare side by side
  3. Charles Sorley · −0.1739 − 0.1595i · 0.026 away · Compare side by side
  4. Juliusz Słowacki · −0.1350 − 0.1841i · 0.029 away · Compare side by side
  5. Dylan Thomas · −0.1928 − 0.1856i · 0.029 away · Compare side by side
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