Poem fractal

What is Good

by John Boyle O'Reilly

28 June 1844 to 10 August 1890 (~46)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The right of revolution is sacred. It is the right of self-defence against tyranny.”

Defending resistance to oppression as a moral and civic right · Essay or political writing (commonly attributed)

More remarks (2)

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. Thomas Hood · 0.4003 − 0.0198i · 0.026 away · Compare side by side
  2. Edwin Arlington Robinson · 0.4338 + 0.0133i · 0.038 away · Compare side by side
  3. Caroline Elizabeth Sheridan · 0.4374 − 0.0639i · 0.042 away · Compare side by side
  4. Nora Hopper Chesson · 0.4019 − 0.0588i · 0.042 away · Compare side by side
  5. Caroline Elizabeth Sheridan · 0.4762 − 0.0312i · 0.051 away · Compare side by side
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