Poem fractal

When the Glare of Day Is Past

by Amelia Alderson Opie

12 November 1769 to 2 December 1853 (~84)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I am at times very low, but there is safety in lowness for some people, and I am one of them.”

Finding humility and caution within periods of low spirits · Letter to Elizabeth Fry, 6 December 1823

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. Nora Hopper Chesson · −0.6119 − 0.5358i · 0.010 away · Compare side by side
  2. Giles Farnaby · −0.6173 − 0.5494i · 0.023 away · Compare side by side
  3. Otto Leland Bohanan · −0.6012 − 0.5019i · 0.029 away · Compare side by side
  4. Robert Herrick · −0.6049 − 0.4912i · 0.037 away · Compare side by side
  5. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · −0.6534 − 0.5111i · 0.040 away · Compare side by side
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