Poem fractal

Sad Songs Remembered

by Philip Bourke Marston

13 August 1850 to 13 February 1887 (~37)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“And as they are of no school they will be fresh, as the old delights of earth are ever fresh.”

Arguing that poetry independent of schools and fashions can retain its freshness · Letter to Louise Chandler Moulton, quoted in Representative Women of New England

More remarks (9)

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. Sir Lewis Morris · −0.1161 + 0.2540i · 0.015 away · Compare side by side
  2. Edward Thomas · −0.1142 + 0.2405i · 0.024 away · Compare side by side
  3. Michael Bruce · −0.1637 + 0.2611i · 0.033 away · Compare side by side
  4. Richard · −0.1283 + 0.2910i · 0.033 away · Compare side by side
  5. John Donne · −0.1358 + 0.2228i · 0.036 away · Compare side by side
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