Poem fractal

Out in the dark

by Edward Thomas

3 March 1878 to 9 April 1917 (~39)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I had never thought of writing poetry until I was nearly forty.”

A modest account of poetry arriving late and unexpectedly in his life · Essay, How I Began to Be a Poet

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. Stephen Phillips · −0.4911 − 0.8400i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  2. Carl Sandburg · −0.4547 − 0.8486i · 0.020 away · Compare side by side
  3. Joseph Campbell · −0.4983 − 0.8457i · 0.025 away · Compare side by side
  4. Thomas Hardy · −0.5008 − 0.8589i · 0.032 away · Compare side by side
  5. William Watson · −0.5175 − 0.8446i · 0.044 away · Compare side by side
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