Poem fractal

The Quitter

by Robert W. Service

16 January 1874 to 11 September 1958 (~84)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Write verse, not poetry. The public wants verse. If you have a talent for poetry, then don't by any means mother it, but try your hand at verse.”

Preferring accessible, memorable verse over rarefied poetry · Conversation or interview (as commonly reported)

More remarks (4)

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. Christina Rossetti · 0.4421 + 0.4259i · 0.018 away · Compare side by side
  2. Thomas Hardy · 0.4142 + 0.4144i · 0.033 away · Compare side by side
  3. If-
    Rudyard Kipling · 0.4066 + 0.3735i · 0.053 away · Compare side by side
  4. Nora Hopper Chesson · 0.4878 + 0.3636i · 0.061 away · Compare side by side
  5. Nora Hopper Chesson · 0.5168 + 0.4013i · 0.070 away · Compare side by side
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