Poem fractal

New Every Morning

by Susan Coolidge

29 January 1835 to 9 April 1905 (~70)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“There is a saving grace in truth which helps truth-tellers through the worst of their troubles.”

On the protective strength of honesty even in hard moments · From What Katy Did

More remarks (1)

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. Edward Lear · −0.0444 − 0.0758i · 0.003 away · Compare side by side
  2. Sir Lewis Morris · −0.0599 − 0.0716i · 0.019 away · Compare side by side
  3. William Wordsworth · −0.0678 − 0.0697i · 0.027 away · Compare side by side
  4. Samuel Taylor Coleridge · −0.0368 − 0.0446i · 0.034 away · Compare side by side
  5. Robert Burns · −0.0069 − 0.0832i · 0.035 away · Compare side by side
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