Poem fractal

The Faun

by Patrick Reginald Chalmers

27 June 1872 to 12 September 1942 (~70)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“So, since we want to know, we must e’en sit down and find its answer each man for himself.”

Turning uncertainty into an invitation to think independently · Book, Gun-Dogs (1931), Pointer chapter

More remarks (29)

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. George Darley · −0.4291 − 0.6525i · 0.004 away · Compare side by side
  2. W. H. Davies · −0.4294 − 0.6534i · 0.005 away · Compare side by side
  3. Paul Laurence Dunbar · −0.4233 − 0.6626i · 0.013 away · Compare side by side
  4. Hart Crane · −0.4355 − 0.6643i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  5. T. S. Eliot · −0.4158 − 0.6673i · 0.021 away · Compare side by side
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