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.

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. The poems were already here before I arrived and began to experiment with them. They will still be here when these musical experiments, and indeed myself, have been swept away, like the sand of a mandala. Nothing has been lost.

I want a simpler end to my life, days of simple love and enjoyment with my wonderful wife of 20 years. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit that life.

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

Maxwell Bodenheim Maxwell Bodenheim

Poet B

John Van Alstyne Weaver John Van Alstyne Weaver
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.

Kindred spirits
Their work already rhymes in the catalogue. The rest of this page is the story around that rhyme.
Biography 70% Poems 85% Blended 76%
Swap sides Another related pair
Maxwell Bodenheim

Maxwell Bodenheim

26 May 1892 – 6 February 1954 (~62)
2 live poems · English

Maxwell Bodenheim's life reads like one of his own feverish poems—raw, defiant, laced with startling imagery, and shadowed by a restless hunger for freedom that both illuminated and destroyed him. Born into the humid anonymity of a small Southern town, he rose to become the self-crowned King of Greenwich Village bohemians during the glittering, gin-soaked Jazz Age, only to tumble into poverty, ridicule, and a violent…

“Frequently she wonders whether good and bad, themselves, are not self-important labels for insecurity, based on over-quick and hard personal judgements and preferences.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Decadent Poets, Imagist Poets, Modernist Poets, Symbolist Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Despair
Listen Timeline Affinities
John Van Alstyne Weaver

John Van Alstyne Weaver

17 July 1893 – 14 June 1938 (~45)
3 live poems · English

John Van Alstyne Weaver emerged from the vibrant literary ferment of early twentieth-century America as a poet who dared to capture the raw, unpolished heartbeat of everyday life. Born into a world of privilege yet drawn irresistibly to the voices of plumbers, shop girls, taxi drivers, and soldiers, he transformed the slang and cadence of the American street into poetry that pulsed with authenticity and charm. His wo…

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Imagist Poets, Light Verse Poets, Love Poets, Modernist Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sensuality, Sorrow
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Maxwell Bodenheim
John Van Alstyne Weaver
1892 1954
They overlapped for 46 years (1893–1938). When John Van Alstyne Weaver was born, Maxwell Bodenheim was about 1. Maxwell Bodenheim was about 46 when John Van Alstyne Weaver died.
Maxwell Bodenheim in history John Van Alstyne Weaver in history Years they were given

On the map

About 994 km separate Hermanville, Mississippi, USA from Charlotte, North Carolina, USA. Shared ground: United States.

Maxwell Bodenheim

John Van Alstyne Weaver

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

life

Maxwell Bodenheim only

death mortality erotic village friendliness street urban eyes city

John Van Alstyne Weaver only

weaver carpe diem authenticity love beloved letters letter note remembered romantic ordinary

From the biographies

jazz age chicago

Maxwell Bodenheim: hermanville, greenwich village, jazz age, minna and myself, ben hecht, chicago renaissance, others anthology, the shop. John Van Alstyne Weaver: charlotte, north carolina, chicago, hamilton college, harvard university, h. l. mencken, in american: poems, finders: more poems in american, to youth.

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.

Death
Maxwell Bodenheim
76% life
Compare
Carpe Diem
John Van Alstyne Weaver
Death
Maxwell Bodenheim
76%
Compare
Perhaps
John Van Alstyne Weaver
Figure
Maxwell Bodenheim
74% life
Compare
Carpe Diem
John Van Alstyne Weaver
Figure
Maxwell Bodenheim
73%
Compare
Perhaps
John Van Alstyne Weaver
Figure
Maxwell Bodenheim
72%
Compare
Letters
John Van Alstyne Weaver
Death
Maxwell Bodenheim
71%
Compare
Letters
John Van Alstyne Weaver

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1893 Co-founding of the Gaelic League
1893 Delivery of 'The Necessity for De-Anglicizing Ireland' Speech
1893 Publication of 'The Hound of Heaven'
1894 Death of Robert Louis Stevenson
1894 Valéry begins his lifelong notebooks
1895 Publication of 'The Red Badge of Courage'
1895 The X-Ray Discovery
1896 Publication of 'A Shropshire Lad'

Maxwell Bodenheim

1916 First Published Work
1920 Emergence as a Bohemian Leader
1921 Publication of 'The New Poetry'
1924 Separation from Ruth
1925 Involvement in the Harlem Renaissance
1927 Publication of 'The Book of Poems'
1930 Financial Struggles and Decline
1932 Publication of 'The Lost Poet'

John Van Alstyne Weaver

1894 Relocation to Chicago
1911 Education at the University of Chicago
1922 Publication of 'The New Poetry'
1925 Friendship with H. L. Mencken
1926 Relocation to New York City
1928 Publication of 'The Jazz Age'
1930 Involvement in the Harlem Renaissance
1937 Illness and Final Works

Emotional landscapes

Maxwell Bodenheim: Sorrow, Longing, Despair. John Van Alstyne Weaver: Longing, Sensuality, Sorrow.

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