Poem fractal

A Bush Christening

by Banjo Paterson

17 February 1864 to 5 February 1941 (~77)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I hope to rescue these rough bush ballads from oblivion.”

Defining his mission to preserve Australia's disappearing folk tradition · Introduction to Old Bush Songs, 1905

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. John Donne · −0.1358 + 0.2228i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
  2. Edward Thomas · −0.1142 + 0.2405i · 0.023 away · Compare side by side
  3. Richard · −0.1139 + 0.1946i · 0.024 away · Compare side by side
  4. Algernon Charles Swinburne · −0.1458 + 0.1992i · 0.031 away · Compare side by side
  5. Sir Lewis Morris · −0.1161 + 0.2540i · 0.036 away · Compare side by side
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