Poem fractal

Sheep and Lambs

by Katharine Tynan Hinkson

23 January 1861 to 2 April 1931 (~70)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I am not especially proud of this facility of mine. It has produced a good deal of honest work, with of course, a good deal of necessary pot-boiling, and it has made some few people happy besides myself.”

Modest reflection on a long career of prolific writing · Reminiscences

More remarks (1)

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. Edward Thomas · −0.2219 − 0.9837i · 0.020 away · Compare side by side
  2. Grace Hazard Conkling · −0.2503 − 1.0074i · 0.022 away · Compare side by side
  3. Emily Dickinson · −0.2493 − 1.0118i · 0.026 away · Compare side by side
  4. Bliss Carman · −0.2733 − 0.9953i · 0.032 away · Compare side by side
  5. Ford Madox Hueffer · −0.2059 − 0.9794i · 0.037 away · Compare side by side
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