Poem fractal

To a Maniac

by Amelia Alderson Opie

12 November 1769 to 2 December 1853 (~84)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I humbly hope I shall be enabled to pray for my friends there, which is all I can do.”

A restrained response to anxiety for friends amid political violence · Letter from Norwich, 2 August 1830

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. Owen Seaman · 0.2391 − 0.4793i · 0.011 away · Compare side by side
  2. Edwin Arlington Robinson · 0.2362 − 0.4534i · 0.015 away · Compare side by side
  3. Edgar Allan Poe · 0.2240 − 0.4743i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  4. Joy
    Carl Sandburg · 0.2327 − 0.4532i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  5. Robert Frost · 0.2632 − 0.4616i · 0.025 away · Compare side by side
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