Poem fractal

Those Names

by Banjo Paterson

17 February 1864 to 5 February 1941 (~77)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I am very particular about my work. It is not enough for me that a line scans correctly, or that it even contains a thought, it must satisfy me.”

Revealing the exacting craftsmanship behind his apparently effortless verse · Interview with Bernard Espinasse, Table Talk, 31 January 1896

More remarks (19)

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. W. H. Davies · −0.1928 + 1.5480i · 0.006 away · Compare side by side
  2. Rudyard Kipling · −0.2214 + 1.5427i · 0.029 away · Compare side by side
  3. George William Russell · −0.1553 + 1.5873i · 0.052 away · Compare side by side
  4. Wilfred Owen · −0.1334 + 1.5771i · 0.065 away · Compare side by side
  5. Nora Hopper Chesson · −0.1573 + 1.6157i · 0.072 away · Compare side by side
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