Poem fractal

O fly not, Pleasure

by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

17 August 1840 to 10 September 1922 (~82)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The oak tree does not monopolize the forest, nor are the flowers which grow there trash.”

Using the diversity of a forest to challenge doctrines based on domination by the strongest · Letter quoted in diary, 29 January 1900

More remarks (39)

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 · 0.6087 − 0.2290i · 0.027 away · Compare side by side
  2. Violet Jacob · 0.6203 − 0.2983i · 0.044 away · Compare side by side
  3. Christina Rossetti · 0.6066 − 0.3069i · 0.051 away · Compare side by side
  4. Robert Wever · 0.6653 − 0.2958i · 0.068 away · Compare side by side
  5. Mathilde Blind · 0.5554 − 0.3015i · 0.071 away · Compare side by side
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