Poem fractal

The Moth

by Nora Hopper Chesson

2 January 1871 to 14 April 1906 (~35)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Nor is there any reason why we should not hang up a sheaf of wheat.”

Extending Christmas generosity beyond people to the natural world · Essay, Christmas Customs, English Illustrated Magazine, 1899

More remarks (33)

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. Mathilde Blind · −0.1587 + 0.2318i · 0.004 away · Compare side by side
  2. Gerard Manley Hopkins · −0.1599 + 0.2147i · 0.021 away · Compare side by side
  3. Michael Bruce · −0.1637 + 0.2611i · 0.026 away · Compare side by side
  4. John Donne · −0.1358 + 0.2228i · 0.027 away · Compare side by side
  5. William Walsh · −0.1782 + 0.2154i · 0.028 away · Compare side by side
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