Poem fractal

Why Bid My Trembling Lips Explain

by Amelia Alderson Opie

12 November 1769 to 2 December 1853 (~84)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I cannot express my delight at feeling that I have fourteen hours before me when I rise, or more, to do what I will in, and write and read as I choose.”

Delighting in an uninterrupted day devoted to reading and writing · Letter to Sarah Rose, 14 January 1833

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. Arthur O'Shaughnessy · −0.3767 − 0.4331i · 0.006 away · Compare side by side
  2. Sara Teasdale · −0.3885 − 0.4302i · 0.015 away · Compare side by side
  3. Sir Henry Taylor · −0.3924 − 0.4385i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
  4. Christina Rossetti · −0.3811 − 0.4220i · 0.018 away · Compare side by side
  5. Ebenezer Jones · −0.3591 − 0.4232i · 0.023 away · Compare side by side
—
—
0:00
0:00
Track 1
Skip to main content