Poem fractal

The Altar

by Charles Tennyson Turner

4 July 1808 to 25 April 1879 (~71)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I wish we were all in heaven.”

A characteristically mild response to moments of strain and disorder · Conversation, recalled by family and friends

More remarks (39)

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. Mark Akenside · −0.2851 − 0.4624i · 0.005 away · Compare side by side
  2. Richard · −0.2783 − 0.4704i · 0.015 away · Compare side by side
  3. Edgar Lee Masters · −0.2747 − 0.4447i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  4. Robert Fergusson · −0.3018 − 0.4484i · 0.019 away · Compare side by side
  5. Gerald Griffin · −0.3010 − 0.4733i · 0.022 away · Compare side by side
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