Poem fractal

I could but see thee yesterday

by Robert Herrick

24 August 1591 to 15 October 1674 (~83)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“To read a poem is to hear the voice of the poet speaking across the years.”

Presenting poetry as intimate communication across time · Essay and preface material, commonly attributed

More remarks (5)

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 · −0.0368 − 0.7290i · 0.006 away · Compare side by side
  2. Christina Rossetti · −0.0548 − 0.7357i · 0.022 away · Compare side by side
  3. Thomas Hood · −0.0405 − 0.7550i · 0.022 away · Compare side by side
  4. Amastan Ag Mohamed · −0.0138 − 0.7511i · 0.026 away · Compare side by side
  5. Richard Lovelace · −0.0086 − 0.7428i · 0.026 away · Compare side by side
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