Poem fractal

End is in beginning

by William Soutar

28 April 1898 to 15 October 1943 (~45)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“And with this emphasis comes the thought that we are but human once, and that to be able to joy in action is a great privilege.”

Values physical freedom more keenly from the perspective of confinement · Diary, 1935

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. Thomas Moore · −0.2408 − 0.8241i · 0.006 away · Compare side by side
  2. Emily Dickinson · −0.2382 − 0.8187i · 0.008 away · Compare side by side
  3. Emily Dickinson · −0.2473 − 0.8177i · 0.015 away · Compare side by side
  4. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · −0.2456 − 0.8134i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
  5. Thomas Moore · −0.2547 − 0.8045i · 0.029 away · Compare side by side
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