Poem fractal

¡Viva la Virgen del Rocío!

by Manuel Machado

29 August 1874 to 19 January 1947 (~73)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“To write poems in order to justify an aesthetic theory, however good it may be, is completely absurd and monstrous.”

Original: Escribir poemas para justificar una teoría estética, por buena que sea, es completamente absurdo y monstruoso. — Insisting that poems should not be manufactured merely to prove theories · Article, Los jóvenes del Ultra, 1919 (Spanish)

More remarks (25)

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. Gabriele D'Annunzio · 1.0343 − 0.5559i · 0.008 away · Compare side by side
  2. Antonio Machado · 0.9548 − 0.4924i · 0.096 away · Compare side by side
  3. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. · 1.1309 − 0.5344i · 0.107 away · Compare side by side
  4. A. A. Milne · 0.9318 − 0.6813i · 0.157 away · Compare side by side
  5. Manuel Machado · 1.1762 − 0.6126i · 0.160 away · Compare side by side
—
—
0:00
0:00
Track 1
Skip to main content