Poem fractal

Pain's Purpose

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

5 November 1850 to 30 October 1919 (~69)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“It is he who scatters, instead of concentrates his mind powers, who keeps himself and others in a state of continual irritation.”

Linking mental distraction with practical disorder and irritation · Essay, Concentration

More remarks (277)

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. Wilfred Owen · −0.5679 + 0.1974i · 0.020 away · Compare side by side
  2. Charles Whitehead · −0.5761 + 0.2027i · 0.026 away · Compare side by side
  3. Nora Hopper Chesson · −0.5580 + 0.2010i · 0.026 away · Compare side by side
  4. John Lyly · −0.5488 + 0.1617i · 0.026 away · Compare side by side
  5. Thomas Hardy · −0.5854 + 0.2060i · 0.032 away · Compare side by side
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