Poem fractal

Pallor

by A. Mary F. Robinson

27 February 1857 to 9 February 1944 (~87)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I have marked in red the days on which I discovered certain poets, most certainly minor, who died centuries ago.”

Remembering the lasting joy of discovering neglected voices from the past · 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. Isobel Pagan · 0.0404 − 0.5651i · 0.015 away · Compare side by side
  2. George Herbert · 0.0723 − 0.5646i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  3. John Keats · 0.0385 − 0.5710i · 0.018 away · Compare side by side
  4. Thomas Osbert Mordaunt · 0.0631 − 0.5802i · 0.019 away · Compare side by side
  5. Lord Byron · 0.0344 − 0.5548i · 0.022 away · Compare side by side
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