Poem fractal

The Rich Man

by Franklin P. Adams

15 November 1881 to 23 March 1960 (~79)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way.”

Celebrating the accidental discoveries of research · As commonly attributed

More remarks (5)

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. Patrick Reginald Chalmers · −0.2591 − 0.6086i · 0.002 away · Compare side by side
  2. Robert Herrick · −0.2606 − 0.6009i · 0.006 away · Compare side by side
  3. A. Mary F. Robinson · −0.2536 − 0.5989i · 0.010 away · Compare side by side
  4. Edgar Allan Poe · −0.2611 − 0.5963i · 0.011 away · Compare side by side
  5. Alexander Anderson · −0.2489 − 0.5993i · 0.013 away · Compare side by side
—
—
0:00
0:00
Track 1
Skip to main content