Poem fractal

The Unknown

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. Hilda Doolittle · 0.0248 − 1.3038i · 0.031 away · Compare side by side
  2. Emily Dickinson · −0.0199 − 1.2667i · 0.040 away · Compare side by side
  3. A. A. Milne · 0.0319 − 1.3164i · 0.045 away · Compare side by side
  4. Bede the Venerable · 0.0694 − 1.2621i · 0.051 away · Compare side by side
  5. Robert Herrick · 0.0491 − 1.2185i · 0.062 away · Compare side by side
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