Poem fractal

Oriflamme

by Jessie R. Fauset

27 April 1882 to 30 April 1961 (~79)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Being colored in America at any rate means: Facing the ordinary difficulties of life, getting education, work, in fine getting a living plus fighting every day against some inhibition of natural liberties.”

Describing the double burden of ordinary life plus racial restriction · Essay, Some Notes on Color (1922)

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. Dylan Thomas · −0.9667 − 0.0971i · 0.057 away · Compare side by side
  2. Hart Crane · −0.9456 − 0.0183i · 0.101 away · Compare side by side
  3. Francis Ledwidge · −0.9116 − 0.1519i · 0.130 away · Compare side by side
  4. Edward Thomas · −1.0657 + 0.0444i · 0.135 away · Compare side by side
  5. Ella Wheeler Wilcox · −0.9770 + 0.0455i · 0.137 away · Compare side by side
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