Poem fractal

On Some Pictures

by Bernard Barton

31 January 1784 to 19 February 1849 (~65)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I have no alternative between not writing at all, and writing what first comes into my head.”

On his spontaneous, unlaboured approach to composition · Letter

More remarks (3)

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. Algernon Charles Swinburne · −0.3362 − 0.4563i · 0.007 away · Compare side by side
  2. Maria White Lowell · −0.3382 − 0.4663i · 0.008 away · Compare side by side
  3. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · −0.3525 − 0.4749i · 0.019 away · Compare side by side
  4. John Donne · −0.3380 − 0.4778i · 0.019 away · Compare side by side
  5. John Clare · −0.3252 − 0.4503i · 0.019 away · Compare side by side
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