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.

The Mandala Is Finished explains this more fully.

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

Countee Cullen Countee Cullen

Poet B

Claude McKay Claude McKay
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 74% Poems 87% Blended 80%
Swap sides Another related pair
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…

“I shall not write of negro subjects for the purpose of propaganda. That is not what a poet is concerned with. Of course, when the emotion rising out of the fact that I am a negro is strong, I express it. But that is another matter.”

Neighbourhood: African American Poets, American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Spirituality, Tenderness
Claude McKay

Claude McKay

15 September 1890 – 22 May 1948 (~58)
5 live poems · English

In the pantheon of American literary history, few figures embody the contradictions and complexities of the twentieth century quite like Claude McKay. Born Festus Claudius McKay on September 15, 1890, in the verdant hills of Clarendon Parish, Jamaica, this poet, novelist, and essayist would become one of the most powerful voices of the Harlem Renaissance, despite spending much of his life in restless exile from the m…

“Feelings of bitterness are a natural part of the black man's birthright. To ask him to render up his bitterness is asking him to part with his soul.”

Neighbourhood: African American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Spirituality

In time

Countee Cullen
Claude McKay
1890 1948
They overlapped for 44 years (1903–1946). When Countee Cullen was born, Claude McKay was about 13. Claude McKay was about 56 when Countee Cullen died.

On the map

About 2,414 km separate Louisville, Kentucky, USA from Clarendon Parish, Jamaica. Shared ground: United States.

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

From the biographies

harlem renaissance harlem racial identity

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. Claude McKay: clarendon parish, jamaica, harlem renaissance, if we must die, the white house, harlem shadows, walter jekyll, red summer.

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.

Yet Do I Marvel
Countee Cullen
75% racial
Compare
If We Must Die
Claude McKay
Yet Do I Marvel
Countee Cullen
74%
Compare
Truth
Claude McKay
Any Human to Another
Countee Cullen
74%
Compare
If We Must Die
Claude McKay
Any Human to Another
Countee Cullen
74%
Compare
Truth
Claude McKay
Yet Do I Marvel
Countee Cullen
72%
Compare
Africa
Claude McKay
To John Keats, Poet at Spring Time
Countee Cullen
71% beauty
Compare
A Red Flower
Claude McKay

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Countee Cullen: Wonder, Spirituality, Tenderness. Claude McKay: Longing, Sorrow, Spirituality.

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