A quiet notice V2Melody closes at midnight on , Spanish time.

Closes

A note from Richard

V2Melody will close at midnight on 20 January 2028

This site has been a retirement project in musical poetry: poems chosen with care and set to music, offered freely for as long as it felt right to keep the garden open.

After the death of my mother, the work no longer holds the place it once did in my life. I have gone as far with it as I wish to go. Like a sand mandala, it was made to be completed and then released. I am not attached to its permanence, and I do not believe any of it needs to last beyond the time it was given.

My wife and I are simplifying our days. The server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit the quieter life we want.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the site.

Until midnight on 20 January 2028, Spanish time, everything remains available exactly as it is. That is when my VPS server contract comes to an end, and it will not be renewed. After that, the server will be switched off and the site will disappear.

Thank you to anyone who found a poem, a track, or a quiet moment here.

The pleasure was in the making.

Richard


Compare Poets

Pick two poets who seem to have nothing to do with each other — a Gothic American and a pastoral Englishman, say — and see where the catalogue actually joins them: overlapping years, shared ground, distinctive themes, and the poems that secretly rhyme.

Poet A

Credo Mutwa Credo Mutwa

Poet B

Countee Cullen Countee Cullen
Compare two related contemporaries

A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.

Strongly related
Their work already rhymes in the catalogue. The rest of this page is the story around that rhyme.
Biography 59% Blended 59%
Swap sides Another related pair
Credo Mutwa

Credo Mutwa

21 July 1921 – 25 March 2020 (~99)
1 live poem · English

Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa (July 21, 1921 - March 25, 2020) stands as one of South Africa's most remarkable cultural figures—a traditional healer (sangoma), author, artist, and cultural historian whose work spans the tumultuous transition from apartheid South Africa to the democratic era. Though often controversial and sometimes misunderstood, Mutwa's contributions to preserving indigenous African knowledge systems, stor…

“History should not be thrown away like an old pumpkin. History should not be scoffed at. History should not be mocked, especially the history of Africa.”

Neighbourhood: Folk & Ballad Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Nature Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Anger, Despair, Sorrow
Listen Timeline Affinities
Countee Cullen

Countee Cullen

30 May 1903 – 9 January 1946 (~43)
4 live poems · English

On May 30, 1903, a child was born who would become one of the most celebrated voices of the Harlem Renaissance, yet whose origins remain shrouded in the kind of mystery that seems almost poetic in retrospect. Countee Cullen's exact birthplace has been disputed—some records suggest New York City, others Louisville, Kentucky, and still others Baltimore, Maryland. This uncertainty about his origins would prove oddly fit…

“In the main, since theirs is also the heritage of the English language, their work will not present any serious aberration from the poetic tendencies of their times.”

Neighbourhood: African American Poets, American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Spirituality, Tenderness
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Credo Mutwa
Countee Cullen
1903 2020
They overlapped for 26 years (1921–1946). When Credo Mutwa was born, Countee Cullen was about 18. Credo Mutwa was about 25 when Countee Cullen died.
Credo Mutwa in history Countee Cullen in history Years they were given

On the map

About 14,147 km separate KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa from Louisville, Kentucky, USA. Different countries, different weather — unless a poem carries one landscape into the other.

Credo Mutwa

Countee Cullen

Open both on the History Atlas

Themes they return to

Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.

Shared

world

Credo Mutwa only

elephant praise animal african memory anger

Countee Cullen only

racial divine suffering social boys children tableau thunder lightning beauty spring death

From the biographies

african tradition

Credo Mutwa: kwazulu-natal, traditional healer, sangoma, indigenous knowledge, indaba, my children, africa is my witness, my people, my africa, song of the stars. Countee Cullen: harlem renaissance, new york city, w.e.b. du bois, color, yet do i marvel, incident, copper sun, the ballad of the brown girl.

Poems that secretly rhyme

The closest poem-to-poem matches in critique space — the sort of kinship a listener hears before the catalogue admits it.

Praise Song to the Elephant
Credo Mutwa
69%
Compare
Any Human to Another
Countee Cullen
Praise Song to the Elephant
Credo Mutwa
68%
Compare
Yet Do I Marvel
Countee Cullen
Praise Song to the Elephant
Credo Mutwa
68% world
Compare
Tableau
Countee Cullen
Praise Song to the Elephant
Credo Mutwa
64% world
Compare
To John Keats, Poet at Spring Time
Countee Cullen

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty Signed in London
1922 Publication of 'The Waste Land'
1924 Frost's First Pulitzer Prize
1925 Death of Amy Lowell
1926 Awarded the Pulitzer Prize
1926 Publication of 'Winnie-the-Pooh'
1928 Alexander Fleming Discovers Penicillin
1928 Lawrence publishes Lady Chatterley's Lover

Credo Mutwa

1940 Education and Traditional Training of Credo Mutwa
1945 Marriage to Lillian Mutwa
1964 First Major Publication: 'Indaba, My Children'
1976 Exile Due to Apartheid Oppression
1994 Return to South Africa Post-Apartheid
1997 Creation of the Credo Mutwa Cultural Village
2010 Publication of 'The Zulu Shaman'
2015 Final Years and Legacy Building

Countee Cullen

1910 Countee Cullen's Adoption by Reverend Cullen
1920 Countee Cullen's Friendship with Langston Hughes
1925 Countee Cullen Graduates from New York University
1925 Countee Cullen's First Major Poetry Collection Published
1926 Cullen joins Opportunity and begins The Dark Tower
1926 Cullen takes a master’s degree at Harvard
1927 Cullen edits the anthology Caroling Dusk
1928 Countee Cullen Marries Yolande Du Bois

Emotional landscapes

Credo Mutwa: Anger, Despair, Sorrow. Countee Cullen: Wonder, Spirituality, Tenderness.

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