Poem fractal

Spring Thunder

by Mark Van Doren

13 June 1894 to 10 December 1972 (~78)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.”

Reflecting on identity as something shaped by inheritance and memory · Essay / aphoristic writing

More remarks (3)

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. Mina Loy · −0.3843 − 1.0947i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  2. Sir Walter Scott · −0.3923 − 1.0513i · 0.028 away · Compare side by side
  3. Emily Dickinson · −0.3649 − 1.0532i · 0.036 away · Compare side by side
  4. Emily Dickinson · −0.4273 − 1.0450i · 0.051 away · Compare side by side
  5. Robert Herrick · −0.3372 − 1.0775i · 0.053 away · Compare side by side
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