Poem fractal

Waltzing Matilda

by Banjo Paterson

17 February 1864 to 5 February 1941 (~77)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“England and Australia are the two extremes in political matters. Here a general may half wreck an Empire and no one does anything.”

Satirising the striking difference between British and Australian political accountability · Letter from London, December 1901

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. Richard · −0.3612 + 0.0181i · 0.002 away · Compare side by side
  2. Anna Lætitia Barbauld · −0.3551 + 0.0117i · 0.008 away · Compare side by side
  3. William Blake · −0.3716 + 0.0184i · 0.010 away · Compare side by side
  4. Susan Coolidge · −0.3628 + 0.0309i · 0.015 away · Compare side by side
  5. Wilfred Owen · −0.3640 − 0.0038i · 0.020 away · Compare side by side
—
—
0:00
0:00
Track 1
Skip to main content