Poem fractal

For warmth alone, for shelter only

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

22 February 1892 to 19 October 1950 (~58)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“A person who publishes a book appears willfully in public, and cannot expect to be treated as if he were a private individual.”

Recognising the exposure and vulnerability involved in publishing · Preface

More remarks (2)

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. Richard · −0.3804 + 0.2157i · 0.003 away · Compare side by side
  2. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · −0.3664 + 0.2369i · 0.022 away · Compare side by side
  3. William Blake · −0.3545 + 0.2154i · 0.024 away · Compare side by side
  4. Francis Ledwidge · −0.3828 + 0.1939i · 0.025 away · Compare side by side
  5. Dylan Thomas · −0.3708 + 0.1911i · 0.028 away · Compare side by side
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