Poem fractal

Beautiful World

by John Stuart Blackie

28 July 1809 to 2 March 1895 (~86)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Those who wish to sing, always find a song.”

Expressing how creative impulse can discover its own means of expression · Remark commonly attributed to John Stuart Blackie

More remarks (1)

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. William Ernest Henley · −0.4599 − 0.5104i · 0.009 away · Compare side by side
  2. David Melvill · −0.4782 − 0.5080i · 0.010 away · Compare side by side
  3. Nora Hopper Chesson · −0.4767 − 0.5136i · 0.010 away · Compare side by side
  4. James Weldon Johnson · −0.4533 − 0.5079i · 0.015 away · Compare side by side
  5. George Chapman · −0.4609 − 0.5244i · 0.018 away · Compare side by side
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