Poem fractal

I Sat Among the Green Leaves

by Marjorie L. C. Pickthall

14 September 1883 to 22 April 1922 (~39)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“To me, the trying part is being a woman at all. I've come to the ultimate conclusion that I'm a misfit of the worst kind, in spite of a superficial femininity.”

Frustration at the clash between daring mind, greed for experience, and convention · Letter to Helen Coleman, 29 December 1919

More remarks (11)

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. Cale Young Rice · −0.2127 + 0.4742i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
  2. John Donne · −0.2240 + 0.4636i · 0.019 away · Compare side by side
  3. A. A. Milne · −0.2045 + 0.4755i · 0.023 away · Compare side by side
  4. John Donne · −0.2364 + 0.4534i · 0.030 away · Compare side by side
  5. Edward Thomas · −0.2631 + 0.5003i · 0.041 away · Compare side by side
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