Poem fractal

Antigonish

by William Hughes Mearns

28 September 1875 to 13 March 1965 (~90)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The difficulty with writing a play is not in writing it, but in getting it produced.”

Capturing the practical obstacles that can stand between artistic creation and public recognition · Creative Power

More remarks (10)

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. A. A. Milne · 0.4752 − 0.3944i · 0.012 away · Compare side by side
  2. Nora Hopper Chesson · 0.4660 − 0.3632i · 0.022 away · Compare side by side
  3. Joanna Baillie · 0.5025 − 0.3890i · 0.035 away · Compare side by side
  4. Ernest Dowson · 0.4235 − 0.3786i · 0.044 away · Compare side by side
  5. A. Mary F. Robinson · 0.4561 − 0.3325i · 0.054 away · Compare side by side
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