Poem fractal

Tattoo

by Wallace Stevens

2 October 1879 to 2 August 1955 (~76)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The great poems of heaven and hell have been written and the great poem of earth remains to be written.”

Turns the unfinished task of poetry toward this world · Essay, The Necessary Angel

More remarks (40)

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. Emily Dickinson · 0.0663 − 0.8831i · 0.012 away · Compare side by side
  2. A.E.Housman · 0.0690 − 0.8760i · 0.018 away · Compare side by side
  3. Thomas Hardy · 0.0946 − 0.8831i · 0.026 away · Compare side by side
  4. William Blake · 0.0437 − 0.8743i · 0.034 away · Compare side by side
  5. George Turberville · 0.0709 − 0.9285i · 0.035 away · Compare side by side
—
—
0:00
0:00
Track 1
Skip to main content