Poem fractal

The Suicide

by Amelia Alderson Opie

12 November 1769 to 2 December 1853 (~84)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Of all things in the world, truth and ingenuousness, the foundation of all virtue, are the rarest.”

Placing honesty and openness at the foundation of moral character · Letter to her father, 25 May 1814

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. Violet Jacob · 0.0560 − 0.4223i · 0.003 away · Compare side by side
  2. Richard · 0.0647 − 0.4093i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
  3. Banjo Paterson · 0.0638 − 0.4466i · 0.024 away · Compare side by side
  4. Paul Laurence Dunbar · 0.0367 − 0.4348i · 0.025 away · Compare side by side
  5. Caedmon · 0.0763 − 0.4036i · 0.027 away · Compare side by side
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