Poem fractal

Roads

by Edward Thomas

3 March 1878 to 9 April 1917 (~39)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I write poetry because I cannot help it.”

Presenting poetry as an involuntary rather than professional activity · Conversation, as reported in biographical accounts

More remarks (4)

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. Robert Bridges · −0.3412 − 1.1303i · 0.011 away · Compare side by side
  2. Emily Dickinson · −0.3385 − 1.1382i · 0.012 away · Compare side by side
  3. Emily Dickinson · −0.3741 − 1.1559i · 0.031 away · Compare side by side
  4. George O'Neil · −0.3118 − 1.1051i · 0.050 away · Compare side by side
  5. Mina Loy · −0.3843 − 1.0947i · 0.054 away · Compare side by side
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