Poem fractal

I Am Standing Upon the Seashore

by Henry Van Dyke

10 November 1852 to 10 April 1933 (~81)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Are you willing to forget what you have done for other people, and to remember only what other people have done for you?”

Defining generosity through humility and gratitude rather than self-congratulation · Essay, The Spirit of Christmas

More remarks (3)

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. D. H. Lawrence · −0.1523 − 0.3664i · 0.014 away · Compare side by side
  2. Strickland Gillilan · −0.1749 − 0.3737i · 0.018 away · Compare side by side
  3. William Schwenck Gilbert · −0.1277 − 0.3906i · 0.032 away · Compare side by side
  4. Richard · −0.1695 − 0.3406i · 0.040 away · Compare side by side
  5. Thomas Carew · −0.1833 − 0.3472i · 0.041 away · Compare side by side
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