Poem fractal

Mutation

by William Cullen Bryant

3 November 1794 to 12 June 1878 (~84)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The press is a mill which grinds all that is put into its hopper. Fill the hopper with poisoned grain and it will grind it to meal, but there is death in the bread.”

Warning that the power of the press depends on the character of those who use it · Speech on the press, New England Society banquet, 23 December 1872

More remarks (68)

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. Letitia Elizabeth Landon · −0.0205 + 0.8309i · 0.011 away · Compare side by side
  2. Charlotte Mew · −0.0193 + 0.8399i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  3. Leonard Bacon · −0.0168 + 0.8167i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  4. Anonymous · −0.0152 + 0.8173i · 0.018 away · Compare side by side
  5. Mary Webb · 0.0035 + 0.8016i · 0.043 away · Compare side by side
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