Poem fractal

Sinking of the Mendi

by S.E.K. Mqhayi

1 December 1875 to 29 July 1945 (~70)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“In those six years I learned much respecting Xhosa life, including the refinements of Xhosa language. If I had not been at Kentani for those six years, it seems to me as if I would not have been any help to my nation.”

Original: Kwezo minyaka mithandathu ndafunda lukhulu ngobomi bamaXhosa, kubandakanywa nobungcwethi bolwimi lwesiXhosa. Ukuba andizange ndibe eKentani ngaloo minyaka mithandathu, kubonakala kum ngathi andizange ndibe luncedo esizweni sam. — Mqhayi credits his rural years with giving him the cultural insight essential to his later work for his people. · Autobiography, UMqhayi waseNtab’ozuko (Xhosa)

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. Robert Burns · 0.8779 − 0.4022i · 0.022 away · Compare side by side
  2. Anthony Munday · 0.8664 − 0.3892i · 0.039 away · Compare side by side
  3. Francesco Petrarca · 0.8778 − 0.3666i · 0.052 away · Compare side by side
  4. John Wesley Holloway · 0.9506 − 0.4130i · 0.056 away · Compare side by side
  5. Mary Webb · 0.8426 − 0.4771i · 0.081 away · Compare side by side
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