Poem fractal

The Pilgrim of Love

by Amelia Alderson Opie

12 November 1769 to 2 December 1853 (~84)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I feel a repose and peace, in spite of my conscious sins, which the world cannot give nor take away, and which I humbly hope will continue to bear me up unto the end.”

Expressing an inward peace she regarded as independent of worldly circumstances · Letter to Elizabeth Fry, January 1824

More remarks (40)

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. Phillis Wheatley · 0.0059 + 0.2017i · 0.027 away · Compare side by side
  2. Charlotte Mew · 0.0503 + 0.2030i · 0.028 away · Compare side by side
  3. Edna St. Vincent Millay · 0.0282 + 0.2185i · 0.032 away · Compare side by side
  4. Ella Wheeler Wilcox · −0.0056 + 0.1861i · 0.034 away · Compare side by side
  5. Philip Bourke Marston · −0.0046 + 0.1955i · 0.034 away · Compare side by side
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