Poem fractal

A Fable

by May (Julian) Sinclair

24 August 1863 to 14 November 1946 (~83)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“This record has at least the value of a human document.”

Defending personal testimony as valuable even when it cannot claim complete factual precision. · Introduction, A Journal of Impressions in Belgium

More remarks (35)

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. Stephen Crane · −0.6617 + 0.1827i · 0.025 away · Compare side by side
  2. Francis Ledwidge · −0.6789 + 0.1579i · 0.049 away · Compare side by side
  3. Thomas Hardy · −0.5854 + 0.2060i · 0.056 away · Compare side by side
  4. Siegfried Sassoon · −0.6799 + 0.1433i · 0.059 away · Compare side by side
  5. Patrick Reginald Chalmers · −0.6258 + 0.1231i · 0.061 away · Compare side by side
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