Poem fractal

Life

by Joaquin Miller

8 September 1837 to 17 February 1913 (~76)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The world has no use for two Homers, or even a second Shakespeare, were he possible.”

Urges originality of theme rather than imitation of the great · Advice to a young writer, later reprinted in Oregon Literature

More remarks (33)

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. Edgar Lee Masters · 0.1793 + 0.2647i · 0.012 away · Compare side by side
  2. Edmund Waller · 0.1866 + 0.2732i · 0.019 away · Compare side by side
  3. Rudyard Kipling · 0.1944 + 0.2545i · 0.030 away · Compare side by side
  4. Dylan Thomas · 0.1665 + 0.2996i · 0.032 away · Compare side by side
  5. Robert Fergusson · 0.1626 + 0.2348i · 0.034 away · Compare side by side
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