Poem fractal

Dreams

by Edgar A. Guest

20 August 1881 to 5 August 1959 (~78)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“And, Mr. Sneering Critic, you certainly cannot disturb my peace of mind with your gibes and taunts unless you have my co-operation.”

Arguing that criticism gains power only when one allows it to do so · Prose writing quoted in Outlook and Independent, 1930

More remarks (25)

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. Laurence Binyon · 0.0790 + 0.1507i · 0.024 away · Compare side by side
  2. A.E.Housman · 0.0887 + 0.1639i · 0.028 away · Compare side by side
  3. Amelia Alderson Opie · 0.0284 + 0.1863i · 0.038 away · Compare side by side
  4. John Donne · 0.0954 + 0.1507i · 0.038 away · Compare side by side
  5. Charlotte Mew · 0.0503 + 0.2030i · 0.038 away · Compare side by side
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