Poem fractal

A Dalesman's Litany

by Frederic William Moorman

8 September 1872 to 8 September 1919 (~47)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The time may not be far distant when England will again become what it was in Elizabethan days—a nest of singing birds.”

Hope that minor voices may swell a national chorus once more · Preface, Songs of the Ridings

More remarks (20)

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. Robert Nichols · −0.0064 − 0.2797i · 0.021 away · Compare side by side
  2. Thomas Hardy · −0.0259 − 0.3150i · 0.024 away · Compare side by side
  3. Edward Thomas · −0.0377 − 0.3137i · 0.026 away · Compare side by side
  4. Aphra Behn · 0.0053 − 0.2836i · 0.031 away · Compare side by side
  5. Lord Byron · −0.0434 − 0.2616i · 0.035 away · Compare side by side
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