Poem fractal

The Wind That Shakes the Barley

by Katharine Tynan Hinkson

23 January 1861 to 2 April 1931 (~70)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“There is an Irish way of paying compliments as though they were irresistible truths which makes what otherwise would be an impertinence, delightful.”

Observing a distinctive national habit of generous speech · Prose writings

More remarks (1)

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. Sara Teasdale · −0.2902 − 0.5559i · 0.009 away · Compare side by side
  2. Alexander Montgomerie · −0.2872 − 0.5677i · 0.010 away · Compare side by side
  3. J.M. Synge · −0.2882 − 0.5551i · 0.010 away · Compare side by side
  4. Ernest Dowson · −0.2809 − 0.5620i · 0.014 away · Compare side by side
  5. Sara Teasdale · −0.3098 − 0.5490i · 0.020 away · Compare side by side
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