Poem fractal

Let me Lean Hard

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

5 November 1850 to 30 October 1919 (~69)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“There is a great truth underlying phrenology, palmistry, and astrology; but it is ridiculous to accept their verdicts as final and unchangeable.”

Even while entertaining occult ideas, she rejects fatalistic interpretations of them · A Woman of the World

More remarks (277)

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. Thomas Chatterton · −0.1899 + 0.0875i · 0.005 away · Compare side by side
  2. William Cartwright · −0.1914 + 0.0961i · 0.010 away · Compare side by side
  3. Allan Cunningham · −0.2099 + 0.0911i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
  4. Richard Lovelace · −0.2128 + 0.0718i · 0.024 away · Compare side by side
  5. Richard · −0.1703 + 0.0867i · 0.024 away · Compare side by side
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