Poem fractal

Figure

by Maxwell Bodenheim

26 May 1892 to 6 February 1954 (~62)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“They rarely ever judge a thing merely on the ground of whether it has achieved that which it obviously set out to achieve.”

Calling for criticism based on a work's own intentions · Correspondence, A Reply to A. C. H., Poetry, 1919

More remarks (39)

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. Gerard Manley Hopkins · −0.3716 + 0.4442i · 0.009 away · Compare side by side
  2. Percy Bysshe Shelley · −0.3451 + 0.4570i · 0.022 away · Compare side by side
  3. Emily Brontë · −0.3468 + 0.4278i · 0.022 away · Compare side by side
  4. William Wordsworth · −0.3644 + 0.4665i · 0.023 away · Compare side by side
  5. William Lisle Bowles · −0.3333 + 0.4282i · 0.033 away · Compare side by side
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