Poem fractal

May

by Edward Hovell-Thurlow

10 June 1781 to 4 June 1829 (~48)

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. Katharine Lee Bates · −0.3489 − 0.8718i · 0.015 away · Compare side by side
  2. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · −0.3512 − 0.8584i · 0.024 away · Compare side by side
  3. Thomas Hardy · −0.3487 − 0.8535i · 0.027 away · Compare side by side
  4. Amy Levy · −0.3114 − 0.8546i · 0.032 away · Compare side by side
  5. Emily Dickinson · −0.3529 − 0.9232i · 0.050 away · Compare side by side
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