Poem fractal

D'Annunzio

by Ernest Hemingway

21 July 1899 to 2 July 1961 (~62)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I wish I could write well enough to write about aircraft. Faulkner did it very well in Pylon.”

Acknowledging another writer's achievement in an area he felt unable to improve upon · Letter, 3 July 1956

More remarks (61)

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. Bede the Venerable · 0.0694 − 1.2621i · 0.021 away · Compare side by side
  2. Robert Herrick · 0.0491 − 1.2185i · 0.049 away · Compare side by side
  3. Emily Dickinson · 0.1349 − 1.2678i · 0.051 away · Compare side by side
  4. Emily Dickinson · 0.1397 − 1.2200i · 0.061 away · Compare side by side
  5. Emily Dickinson · 0.1026 − 1.1867i · 0.066 away · Compare side by side
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