Poem fractal

Life is a Confluence

by John Boyle O'Reilly

28 June 1844 to 10 August 1890 (~46)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“For all time to come, the freedom and purity of the press are the test of national virtue and independence. No writer for the press, however humble, is free from the burden of keeping his purpose high and his integrity white.”

On the moral responsibility of journalism to public virtue · Speech to the Boston Press Club, 1879

More remarks (2)

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. James Joyce · 0.7221 − 1.0433i · 0.040 away · Compare side by side
  2. William Blake · 0.8018 − 1.1809i · 0.119 away · Compare side by side
  3. Waverley Turner Carmichael · 0.7736 − 0.9159i · 0.166 away · Compare side by side
  4. Anonymous · 0.9099 − 1.0492i · 0.171 away · Compare side by side
  5. Alfred Kreymborg · 0.5853 − 1.1523i · 0.172 away · Compare side by side
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