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

Alfred Kreymborg Alfred Kreymborg

Poet B

William Rose Benét William Rose Benét
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.

Strongly related
Their work already rhymes in the catalogue. The rest of this page is the story around that rhyme.
Biography 71% Poems 79% Blended 75%
Swap sides Another related pair
Alfred Kreymborg

Alfred Kreymborg

10 December 1883 – 14 August 1966 (~83)
2 live poems · English

In the early decades of the twentieth century, when American poetry was struggling to break free from the strictures of Victorian convention, a slight, chess-obsessed son of German immigrants emerged as one of the most influential figures in literary modernism. Alfred Kreymborg, born on December 10, 1883, in New York City, would become far more than a poet. He was a literary impresario, a talent scout with an uncanny…

“An editor's primary duty to his contributors is to print them without making them pay for the privilege.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Imagist Poets, Modernist Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Longing, Spirituality
Listen Timeline Affinities
William Rose Benét

William Rose Benét

2 February 1886 – 4 May 1950 (~64)
2 live poems · English

William Rose Benét was born on 2 February 1886 at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, New York, and died on 4 May 1950 in New York City. During his lifetime he became known as a poet, editor, critic, anthologist, essayist, novelist in verse, and tireless popularizer of literature. He belonged to a family unusually rich in literary talent: his younger brother was the poet and novelist Stephen Vincent Benét, author of John Brow…

“Who writes poetry imbibes honey from the poisoned lips of life.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Folk & Ballad Poets, Georgian Poets, Light Verse Poets, Modernist Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Wonder
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Alfred Kreymborg
William Rose Benét
1883 1966
They overlapped for 65 years (1886–1950). When William Rose Benét was born, Alfred Kreymborg was about 3. Alfred Kreymborg was about 67 when William Rose Benét died.
Alfred Kreymborg in history William Rose Benét in history Years they were given

On the map

About 12 km separate New York City, New York, USA from Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn, New York, USA. Both have ground in New York.

Alfred Kreymborg

William Rose Benét

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

world life

Alfred Kreymborg only

play prodigy dignity idealism stream dream tree bird self

William Rose Benét only

lake cold love nature shadows ghost ponies cottage animals books

From the biographies

Alfred Kreymborg: new york city, german immigrants, greenwich village, alfred stieglitz, the glebe, des imagistes, imagism, others: a magazine of the new verse. William Rose Benét: fort hamilton, brooklyn, stephen vincent benét, merchants from cathay, perpetual light, the skater of ghost lake, the great white wall, the burglar of the zodiac.

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.

Prodigy
Alfred Kreymborg
75% world, life
Compare
The Skater of Ghost Lake
William Rose Benét
Idealists
Alfred Kreymborg
69% world
Compare
The Skater of Ghost Lake
William Rose Benét
Prodigy
Alfred Kreymborg
66% world, life
Compare
The Ponies
William Rose Benét
Idealists
Alfred Kreymborg
64% world
Compare
The Ponies
William Rose Benét

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1886 Coca-Cola invented by John Pemberton in Atlanta
1886 Discovery of Gold on the Witwatersrand Sparks Johannesburg Boom
1886 Emily Dickinson's Posthumous Discovery by Sister Lavinia
1891 Conversion to Roman Catholicism
1892 Opening of Ellis Island
1892 Valéry undergoes the Genoa crisis
1893 Co-founding of the Gaelic League
1893 Delivery of 'The Necessity for De-Anglicizing Ireland' Speech

Alfred Kreymborg

1900 Kreymborg's Musical Education
1914 Publication of 'The Little Review'
1915 Founding of 'Others' Magazine
1917 Publication of 'The New Poetry'
1917 Publication of 'The New Poetry' Anthology
1920 Kreymborg's Friendship with William Carlos Williams
1920 Publication of 'The New York Times' Poetry Section
1945 Kreymborg's Involvement with the New American Poetry

William Rose Benét

1903 Education at Yale University
1913 Marriage to Sara Teasdale
1918 Publication of 'The Dust Which Is God'
1935 Publication of 'The Ballad of Sir John Franklin'
1941 Publication of 'The Great American Novel'
1942 Awarded the Academy of American Poets Fellowship
1943 Publication of 'The Last of the Great American Poets'
1950 Death of William Rose Benét

Emotional landscapes

Alfred Kreymborg: Wonder, Longing, Spirituality. William Rose Benét: Longing, Tenderness, Wonder.

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