Poem fractal

Invisible

by Elizabeth Devereux

12 March 1934 to 29 July 2023 (~89)

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. Edna St. Vincent Millay · −0.0549 − 0.0027i · 0.010 away · Compare side by side
  2. William Blake · −0.0360 − 0.0225i · 0.019 away · Compare side by side
  3. John Clare · −0.0771 + 0.0024i · 0.029 away · Compare side by side
  4. Juliusz Słowacki · −0.0820 − 0.0166i · 0.030 away · Compare side by side
  5. Nora Hopper Chesson · −0.0739 − 0.0345i · 0.031 away · Compare side by side
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