Poem fractal

I ask of thee, love, nothing but relief

by Mary Coleridge

23 September 1861 to 25 August 1907 (~46)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“There's no pathos of age except where it touches humanity.”

Locating the poignancy of age in human experience rather than mere antiquity · Gathered Leaves, letters and diaries, 1897–1907

More remarks (39)

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. Mark Alexander Boyd · 0.0335 − 0.1513i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  2. Lewis Carroll · 0.0068 − 0.1820i · 0.024 away · Compare side by side
  3. Rupert Brooke · 0.0254 − 0.1375i · 0.027 away · Compare side by side
  4. Richard · 0.0490 − 0.1766i · 0.029 away · Compare side by side
  5. Dylan Thomas · 0.0141 − 0.1368i · 0.029 away · Compare side by side
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