Poem fractal

Tanka II

by Sadakichi Hartmann

8 November 1867 to 22 November 1944 (~77)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Geometrical shapes form the intelligent and austere understructure of all arts, in a palace as well as a poem.”

Seeing abstract form as the skeleton of every art · Camera Work essay

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. Christina Rossetti · −0.4208 − 0.8308i · 0.008 away · Compare side by side
  2. Sydney Dobell · −0.3956 − 0.8332i · 0.018 away · Compare side by side
  3. Emily Dickinson · −0.4228 − 0.8597i · 0.030 away · Compare side by side
  4. Emily Dickinson · −0.3821 − 0.8485i · 0.036 away · Compare side by side
  5. Sara Teasdale · −0.4319 − 0.8641i · 0.038 away · Compare side by side
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