Poem fractal

The Assault

by Robert Nichols

6 September 1893 to 17 December 1944 (~51)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“He speaks our language better than we do merely because he is more skilful with it than we are; his skill is part of our skill, his power of our power.”

Treats poetic gift as a heightening of shared speech · Introduction, Ardours and Endurances, 1917

More remarks (10)

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. Charles Mackay · −0.2146 − 0.3473i · 0.004 away · Compare side by side
  2. Paul Laurence Dunbar · −0.2060 − 0.3484i · 0.011 away · Compare side by side
  3. James Stephens · −0.2100 − 0.3384i · 0.014 away · Compare side by side
  4. George Herbert · −0.2070 − 0.3393i · 0.015 away · Compare side by side
  5. Arthur Hugh Clough · −0.2022 − 0.3428i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
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