Poem fractal

Spring Song of the Birds

by King James I of Scotland

July 1394 to 21 February 1437 (~43)

Browse poets 678

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. John Donne · 0.4879 + 0.1393i · 0.015 away · Compare side by side
  2. Philip Bourke Marston · 0.5210 + 0.1468i · 0.019 away · Compare side by side
  3. John Donne · 0.4652 + 0.1045i · 0.054 away · Compare side by side
  4. Thomas, Lord Vaux · 0.4587 + 0.1061i · 0.057 away · Compare side by side
  5. Nora Hopper Chesson · 0.5544 + 0.1743i · 0.061 away · Compare side by side
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