Poem fractal

The Lesson of the Water Mill

by Sarah Doudney

15 January 1841 to 8 December 1926 (~85)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“If you set out to do a good deed, you may do a hundred small kindnesses on the way.”

On how intentional goodness multiplies into many ordinary acts of care · Novel, Stepping Stones (1880)

More remarks (1)

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. Charles Williams · −0.6634 − 0.4129i · 0.023 away · Compare side by side
  2. Howard Phillips Lovecraft · −0.6987 − 0.3934i · 0.024 away · Compare side by side
  3. D. H. Lawrence · −0.6715 − 0.3879i · 0.030 away · Compare side by side
  4. Dante Gabriel Rossetti · −0.6811 − 0.3832i · 0.031 away · Compare side by side
  5. Christina Rossetti · −0.6630 − 0.3895i · 0.034 away · Compare side by side
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