Poem fractal

Wanting the Moon

by Cale Young Rice

7 December 1872 to 24 January 1943 (~71)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Great poetry, therefore, it is evident, must possess many of these attributes, and the greatest at times seems to combine all.”

Arguing that the greatest poetry combines many distinct artistic qualities · Preface, Shadowy Thresholds (1919)

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. Felicia Dorothea Hemans · −0.4056 − 0.2697i · 0.002 away · Compare side by side
  2. W. H. Davies · −0.4017 − 0.2783i · 0.007 away · Compare side by side
  3. George Crabbe · −0.3939 − 0.2677i · 0.011 away · Compare side by side
  4. Christina Rossetti · −0.3885 − 0.2699i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
  5. Thomas Moore · −0.4137 − 0.2851i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
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