Poem fractal

The Stormy Petrel

by Barry Cornwall

21 November 1787 to 5 October 1874 (~87)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“When we encounter a new idea it surprises us, and we begin to doubt and examine it—and this is thought.”

Defining thought as active examination rather than passive acceptance · Autobiographical fragment, Chapter III (published posthumously, 1877)

More remarks (49)

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 Kirbye · −0.5194 + 0.3155i · 0.023 away · Compare side by side
  2. John Milton · −0.4938 + 0.2744i · 0.026 away · Compare side by side
  3. Gordon Bottomley · −0.4945 + 0.2693i · 0.030 away · Compare side by side
  4. Carl Sandburg · −0.5130 + 0.2666i · 0.031 away · Compare side by side
  5. Philip Bourke Marston · −0.4783 + 0.3170i · 0.034 away · Compare side by side
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