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.

I want a simpler life, without the hassle of being online. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit the life I 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

Jessie R. Fauset Jessie R. Fauset

Poet B

Alice Dunbar Nelson Alice Dunbar Nelson
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 76% Blended 76%
Swap sides Another related pair
Jessie R. Fauset

Jessie R. Fauset

27 April 1882 – 30 April 1961 (~79)
1 live poem · English

Jessie Redmon Fauset entered the world on April 27, 1882, in the small community of Fredericksville—now known as Lawnside—in Camden County, New Jersey. She was the seventh child born to Redmon Fauset, a respected African Methodist Episcopal minister, and his wife Annie Seamon Fauset. Tragedy struck early when Annie died while Jessie was still a young girl, leaving a void that her father filled with unwavering devotio…

“I like Paris because I find something here, something of integrity, which I seem to have strangely lost in my own country. It is simplest of all to say that I like to live among people and surroundings where I am not always conscious of 'thou shall not.”

Neighbourhood: African American Poets, American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Modernist Poets, Social Justice Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
Listen Timeline Affinities
Alice Dunbar Nelson

Alice Dunbar Nelson

19 July 1875 – 18 September 1935 (~60)
2 live poems · English

Alice Dunbar Nelson was born Alice Ruth Moore on July 19, 1875, in the bustling, sun-drenched city of New Orleans, Louisiana, a place where the Mississippi River whispered stories of resilience and reinvention into the ears of its diverse inhabitants. She died on September 18, 1935, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the age of sixty, her heart finally succumbing to the strains of a life lived with fierce passion and…

“It's punishment to be compelled to do what one doesn't wish.”

Neighbourhood: African American Poets, American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, LGBTQ+ Poets, Social Justice Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Jessie R. Fauset
Alice Dunbar Nelson
1875 1961
They overlapped for 54 years (1882–1935). When Jessie R. Fauset was born, Alice Dunbar Nelson was about 7. Jessie R. Fauset was about 53 when Alice Dunbar Nelson died.
Jessie R. Fauset in history Alice Dunbar Nelson in history Years they were given

On the map

About 1,793 km separate Fredericksville, New Jersey, USA from New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. Both have ground in New Jersey.

Jessie R. Fauset

Alice Dunbar Nelson

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.

No overlapping top terms in the poem critiques — any kinship may sit in mood rather than vocabulary.

Jessie R. Fauset only

mother stars truth crisis harlem african slavery

Alice Dunbar Nelson only

love life woman regret roses desire garden beauty conscience satan

From the biographies

harlem renaissance women philadelphia

Jessie R. Fauset: fredericksville, lawnside, camden county, m. carey thomas, cornell university, the crisis, w.e.b. du bois, there is confusion. Alice Dunbar Nelson: new orleans, philadelphia, paul laurence dunbar, violets and other tales, the goodness of st. rocque, the stones of the village, phillis wheatley club, national association of colored women.

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.

Oriflamme
Jessie R. Fauset
74%
Compare
If I Had Known
Alice Dunbar Nelson
Oriflamme
Jessie R. Fauset
65%
Compare
Amid the Roses
Alice Dunbar Nelson

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

Jessie R. Fauset

1900 Graduation from Philadelphia High School for Girls
1905 Graduation from Cornell University
1919 Marriage to Herbert Harris
1920 Relocation to Paris
1924 Publication of 'There Is Confusion'
1929 Publication of 'Plum Bun'
1931 Publication of 'The Chinaberry Tree'
1935 Publication of 'The Poems of Jessie R. Fauset'

Alice Dunbar Nelson

1892 Education at Straight University
1895 Publication of 'Violets and Other Tales'
1910 Involvement in the NAACP
1920 Friendship with W.E.B. Du Bois
1920 Involvement in the Women's Movement
1922 Publication of 'The Book of American Negro Poetry'
1926 Publication of 'The Goodness of St. Rocque'
1931 Publication of 'The Dunbar-Nelson Collection'

Emotional landscapes

Jessie R. Fauset: Sorrow, Despair, Longing. Alice Dunbar Nelson: Longing, Sorrow, Despair.

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