Poem fractal

Come-by-Chance

by Banjo Paterson

17 February 1864 to 5 February 1941 (~77)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“This appeals to me very much, the only trouble being to write the stuff well enough.”

Revealing the modest self-doubt that accompanied his enthusiasm for a new project · Letter to Major W. T. Conder, 12 December 1934

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. Edgar Lee Masters · −0.1059 + 1.2287i · 0.055 away · Compare side by side
  2. Walter Savage Landor · −0.0671 + 1.2247i · 0.055 away · Compare side by side
  3. Edgar Lee Masters · −0.1375 + 1.2860i · 0.056 away · Compare side by side
  4. Humbert Wolfe · −0.1403 + 1.2972i · 0.061 away · Compare side by side
  5. Robert Herrick · −0.1339 + 1.2340i · 0.068 away · Compare side by side
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