Poem fractal

Treasure Song

by A. Mary F. Robinson

27 February 1857 to 9 February 1944 (~87)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“We cannot all be great poets; but the humblest, if they be sincere, may give a genuine pleasure.”

Affirming that honest modest work can possess lasting value without achieving greatness · Preface to her Collected Poems (1902)

More remarks (8)

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. Nora Hopper Chesson · 0.5778 − 0.8898i · 0.015 away · Compare side by side
  2. Georgia Douglas Johnson · 0.6425 − 0.8845i · 0.054 away · Compare side by side
  3. Emily Dickinson · 0.5810 − 0.9430i · 0.064 away · Compare side by side
  4. Emily Dickinson · 0.6582 − 0.8544i · 0.073 away · Compare side by side
  5. Langston Hughes · 0.6582 − 0.9204i · 0.080 away · Compare side by side
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