Poem fractal

The Samphire Gatherer

by Nora Hopper Chesson

2 January 1871 to 14 April 1906 (~35)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Even the Good People—the Gentle People, the Fairies know, and keep sacred this piece of Yule.”

Blending Christmas tradition with the fairy lore that fascinated Chesson · Essay, Christmas Customs, English Illustrated Magazine, 1899

More remarks (33)

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. Wilfred Owen · −0.5679 + 0.1974i · 0.011 away · Compare side by side
  2. Charles Whitehead · −0.5761 + 0.2027i · 0.018 away · Compare side by side
  3. Wilfred Owen · −0.5754 + 0.2184i · 0.025 away · Compare side by side
  4. Ella Wheeler Wilcox · −0.5699 + 0.1777i · 0.026 away · Compare side by side
  5. Thomas Hardy · −0.5854 + 0.2060i · 0.028 away · Compare side by side
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