Poem fractal

The Great Breath

by George William Russell

10 April 1867 to 17 July 1935 (~68)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The love of beauty is the love of life.”

Connects aesthetic appreciation with a deeper affirmation of existence · Essay / prose writing

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. Charles Sorley · −0.1739 − 0.1595i · 0.009 away · Compare side by side
  2. Celia Thaxter · −0.1486 − 0.1624i · 0.021 away · Compare side by side
  3. Amy Lowell · −0.1578 − 0.1343i · 0.021 away · Compare side by side
  4. Watcyn Wyn · −0.1759 − 0.1308i · 0.024 away · Compare side by side
  5. William Strode · −0.1573 − 0.1294i · 0.026 away · Compare side by side
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