Poem fractal

The Dark Man

by Nora Hopper Chesson

2 January 1871 to 14 April 1906 (~35)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The birds may find one meal sure on Christmas Day.”

A small but memorable image of kindness towards other living creatures · Essay, Christmas Customs, English Illustrated Magazine, 1899

More remarks (33)

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. Ella Wheeler Wilcox · −0.0653 − 0.1643i · 0.015 away · Compare side by side
  2. D. H. Lawrence · −0.0538 − 0.1761i · 0.020 away · Compare side by side
  3. Matthew Arnold · −0.0781 − 0.1570i · 0.020 away · Compare side by side
  4. William Wordsworth · −0.0850 − 0.2014i · 0.027 away · Compare side by side
  5. Robert Herrick · −0.0500 − 0.2031i · 0.035 away · Compare side by side
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