Poem fractal

Sea-Hoardings

by Cale Young Rice

7 December 1872 to 24 January 1943 (~71)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“No poetic public will long give attention to a realism which makes the mistake, common to all shallow realism, of neglecting passion, imagination, charm and nearly all the permanent qualities of any true poetry.”

Defending passion, imagination and charm as enduring poetic qualities · Preface, Trails Sunward (1917)

More remarks (39)

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. Dylan Thomas · −0.3983 + 1.2069i · 0.021 away · Compare side by side
  2. Banjo Paterson · −0.4174 + 1.1580i · 0.049 away · Compare side by side
  3. Samuel Taylor Coleridge · −0.4286 + 1.1694i · 0.052 away · Compare side by side
  4. Banjo Paterson · −0.4314 + 1.1756i · 0.052 away · Compare side by side
  5. Edward Thomas · −0.3334 + 1.2194i · 0.056 away · Compare side by side
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