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

Leslie Pinckney Hill Leslie Pinckney Hill

Poet B

Edward Smyth Jones Edward Smyth Jones
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 72% Poems 84% Blended 77%
Swap sides Another related pair
Leslie Pinckney Hill

Leslie Pinckney Hill

14 May 1880 – 15 February 1960 (~80)
2 live poems · English

Leslie Pinckney Hill entered the world on May 14, 1880, in Lynchburg, Virginia, the son of Samuel H. Hill, a man who had known the brutal chains of enslavement, and Sarah E. Hill. In the shadow of the post-Reconstruction South, where the promises of freedom still clashed with the realities of Jim Crow oppression, young Leslie’s early years were steeped in the rhythms of a family striving for dignity and self-determin…

“He has been made strong in tribulation. He has constrained oppression to give him wings.”

Neighbourhood: African American Poets, American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Sorrow, Tenderness
Listen Timeline Affinities
Edward Smyth Jones

Edward Smyth Jones

March 1881 – 28 September 1968 (~87)
2 live poems · English

In the shadowed legacy of America's post-Reconstruction South, where the ghosts of slavery still whispered through cotton fields and river mists, Edward Smyth Jones emerged as a voice of quiet defiance and luminous hope. Born in March 1881 in Natchez, Mississippi, to Hawk and Rebecca Jones—parents who had known the brutal chains of enslavement before emancipation—Jones inherited a world of profound limitation and bou…

Neighbourhood: African American Poets, Devotional Poets, Love Poets, Nature Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Peace, Spirituality, Tenderness
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Leslie Pinckney Hill
Edward Smyth Jones
1880 1968
They overlapped for 80 years (1881–1960). When Edward Smyth Jones was born, Leslie Pinckney Hill was about 1. Edward Smyth Jones was about 79 when Leslie Pinckney Hill died.
Leslie Pinckney Hill in history Edward Smyth Jones in history Years they were given

On the map

About 1,297 km separate Lynchburg, Virginia, USA from Natchez, Mississippi, USA. Shared ground: United States.

Leslie Pinckney Hill

Edward Smyth Jones

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

power african

Leslie Pinckney Hill only

hill self life divine education suffering world oppression social beauty poor

Edward Smyth Jones only

remit saddest financial gratitude

From the biographies

harvard university

Leslie Pinckney Hill: lynchburg virginia, east orange new jersey, harvard university, booker t. washington, the wings of oppression, cheyney state teachers college, jane ethel clark, the crisis. Edward Smyth Jones: natchez, mississippi, harvard university, the rose that bloometh in my heart, invincible ned, paul laurence dunbar, the sylvan cabin, clement g. morgan, william stanley braithwaite.

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 Teacher
Leslie Pinckney Hill
76% african
Compare
A Song of Thanks
Edward Smyth Jones
The Wings of Oppression
Leslie Pinckney Hill
74% power
Compare
Remit
Edward Smyth Jones
The Teacher
Leslie Pinckney Hill
74% power
Compare
Remit
Edward Smyth Jones
The Wings of Oppression
Leslie Pinckney Hill
72%
Compare
A Song of Thanks
Edward Smyth Jones

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

Leslie Pinckney Hill

1888 Relocation to East Orange, New Jersey
1898 Graduation from High School
1899 Enrollment at Harvard University
1903 Graduation from Harvard University
1917 First Major Publication
1940 Publication of 'The Poet's Voice'
1945 Awarded the Harmon Foundation Award
1960 Death of Leslie Pinckney Hill

Edward Smyth Jones

1902 Jones studies at Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College
1908 Jones self-publishes The Rose that Bloometh in My Heart
1910 Jones is jailed after reaching Harvard Square
1910 Jones travels from Indianapolis toward Harvard
1910 Jones works at Harvard and attends Boston Latin School
1911 Jones publishes The Sylvan Cabin
1920 First Major Publication
1922 Jones is included in The Book of American Negro Poetry

Emotional landscapes

Leslie Pinckney Hill: Spirituality, Sorrow, Tenderness. Edward Smyth Jones: Peace, Spirituality, Tenderness.

Skip to main content