Poem fractal

The Sister

by Francis Ledwidge

19 August 1887 to 31 July 1917 (~30)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“For a long time I did little but criticise and rearrange my books, separating, as it were, the sheep from the goats.”

Reading critically became part of his education as a writer · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

More remarks (94)

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. Paul Laurence Dunbar · −0.4851 − 0.6733i · 0.020 away · Compare side by side
  2. Robert Williams Buchanan · −0.4688 − 0.6702i · 0.021 away · Compare side by side
  3. Thomas Chatterton · −0.4580 − 0.6517i · 0.024 away · Compare side by side
  4. Charlotte Richardson · −0.4540 − 0.6537i · 0.028 away · Compare side by side
  5. Emily Dickinson · −0.4733 − 0.6819i · 0.029 away · Compare side by side
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