Poem fractal

To a Very Slow Air

by Philip Arthur Larkin

9 August 1922 to 2 December 1985 (~63)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I think that writing is rather like driving: you can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

Frequently attributed to Larkin, though the primary source is not consistently identified · Interview / conversation

More remarks (4)

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. Mary Lamb · −0.1343 − 0.5458i · 0.003 away · Compare side by side
  2. Robert Southey · −0.1266 − 0.5359i · 0.011 away · Compare side by side
  3. Edward Thomas · −0.1358 − 0.5556i · 0.012 away · Compare side by side
  4. Martin Peerson · −0.1265 − 0.5533i · 0.013 away · Compare side by side
  5. William Wordsworth · −0.1499 − 0.5446i · 0.015 away · Compare side by side
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