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.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this 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

Anne Whitney Anne Whitney

Poet B

Anne Spencer Anne Spencer
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 66% Poems 86% Blended 75%
Swap sides Another related pair
Anne Whitney

Anne Whitney

2 September 1821 – 23 January 1915 (~94)
3 live poems · English

In the pantheon of 19th-century American artists, few figures embody the spirit of creative rebellion and social conscience as powerfully as Anne Whitney. Born into an era when women were expected to confine their artistic pursuits to watercolors and embroidery, Whitney defied convention to become one of America's most accomplished sculptors and a significant voice in poetry. Her ninety-four years spanned a transform…

“For me - no principle is endangered in his participation in this affair - more than in any other person's performance with whom I may have to do.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Spirituality, Irony
Listen Timeline Affinities
Anne Spencer

Anne Spencer

6 February 1882 – 27 July 1975 (~93)
3 live poems · English

Anne Spencer was a poet whose verses captured the quiet fire of resilience, the lush beauty of the natural world, and the sharp edges of racial and gender injustice in early twentieth-century America. Born in the rolling farmlands of Virginia at a time when the shadow of slavery still lingered over Black lives, she forged a literary legacy that transcended her geographic isolation from the bustling heart of the Harle…

“I answered every letter I ever received, though at times—too many times—that answer did not get on the paper or in the mail.”

Neighbourhood: African American Poets, American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Love Poets, Social Justice Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Sorrow, Longing
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Anne Whitney
Anne Spencer
1821 1975
They overlapped for 34 years (1882–1915). When Anne Spencer was born, Anne Whitney was about 61. Anne Spencer was about 33 when Anne Whitney died.
Anne Whitney in history Anne Spencer in history Years they were given

On the map

About 980 km separate Watertown, Massachusetts, USA from Henry County, Virginia, USA. Shared ground: United States.

Anne Whitney

Anne Spencer

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

Anne Whitney only

grave digger death burial laughter mortality social dreaming awake dream pain divine

Anne Spencer only

heart world woman love wife harlem stars silence friend travelers prayer harmony

From the biographies

Anne Whitney: watertown, massachusetts, james monroe, civil war, abolition, women's rights, the lone parting, equinoxial, ethiopia. Anne Spencer: lynchburg, danville, edward alexander spencer, the crisis, before the feast of shushan, white things, lady lady, the wife-woman.

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.

The Passion Flower
Anne Whitney
76% heart, love
Compare
The Wife-Woman
Anne Spencer
Half Awake
Anne Whitney
74% life
Compare
Requiem
Anne Spencer
The Grave-Digger
Anne Whitney
74% death, life
Compare
Requiem
Anne Spencer
Half Awake
Anne Whitney
73%
Compare
Translation
Anne Spencer
Half Awake
Anne Whitney
72% life
Compare
The Wife-Woman
Anne Spencer
The Passion Flower
Anne Whitney
72% soul
Compare
Translation
Anne Spencer

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1882 Nietzsche Declares 'God is Dead'
1882 Robert Koch Discovers the Tuberculosis Bacillus
1883 Emil Christian Hansen Isolates a Pure Yeast Culture at Carlsberg
1883 Friedrich Nietzsche Publishes 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra'
1883 Publication of 'Treasure Island'
1884 Oxford English Dictionary Begins Publication
1884 Publication of 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'
1885 Pasteur Successfully Tests the Rabies Vaccine

Anne Whitney

1837 Education at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary
1850 Move to Boston
1854 Publication of 'Poems' Collection
1869 Involvement in the Women's Suffrage Movement
1880 Creation of the Statue of Samuel Adams
1885 Travel to Europe for Artistic Inspiration
1890 Publication of 'The Poems of Anne Whitney'
1915 Death of Anne Whitney

Anne Spencer

1901 Marriage to Edward Spencer
1910 Annie Bethel Scales Bannister's Name Change
1919 Involvement with the NAACP
1920 Publication of 'In the Garden'
1923 Publication of 'The Black Flower'
1923 Publication of 'The Cone' in 'The Crisis'
1926 Friendship with Langston Hughes
1940 Founding of the Lynchburg Chapter of the NAACP

Emotional landscapes

Anne Whitney: Sorrow, Spirituality, Irony. Anne Spencer: Spirituality, Sorrow, Longing.

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