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

Paul Éluard Paul Éluard

Poet B

Alan Seeger Alan Seeger
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 72% Blended 72%
Swap sides Another related pair
Paul Éluard

Paul Éluard

14 December 1895 – 18 November 1952 (~57)
1 live poem · French

Paul Éluard, born Eugène Émile Paul Grindel on 14 December 1895 in Saint-Denis, near Paris, became one of the defining French poets of the twentieth century. His career crossed some of the century’s most turbulent landscapes: the First World War, the invention of Dada and Surrealism, the rise of fascism, the German occupation of France, the liberation, and the ideological divisions of the Cold War. In each period, Él…

“We need few words to express what is essential; we need all the words to make it real.”

Neighbourhood: French Symbolists, Love Poets, Modernist Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Despair, Sorrow, Fear
Alan Seeger

Alan Seeger

22 June 1888 – 4 July 1916 (~28)
12 live poems · English

Alan Seeger was born in New York City on 22 June 1888, into an American family whose comfort, education, and international connections gave him unusual freedom while also placing before him the question of what a privileged young man ought to do with his life. He died on 4 July 1916, age twenty-eight, in the Battle of the Somme while serving in the French Foreign Legion. In the years between those dates he became, in…

“It is a wonderful experience to be actually in the midst of great events.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Death & Mortality, Edwardian Poets, Modernist Poets, War Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Wonder

In time

Paul Éluard
Alan Seeger
1888 1952
They overlapped for 22 years (1895–1916). When Paul Éluard was born, Alan Seeger was about 7. Paul Éluard was about 21 when Alan Seeger died.

On the map

About 5,835 km separate Saint-Denis, Île-de-France, France from New York City, New York, USA. Shared ground: France.

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

french

Paul Éluard: saint-denis, gala, surrealism, dada, first world war, tuberculosis, capitale de la douleur, la vie immédiate. Alan Seeger: new york city, battle of the somme, french foreign legion, i have a rendezvous with death, the torture of cuauhtemoc, charles seeger sr., elsie simmons adams seeger, pete seeger.

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.

Avis
Paul Éluard
74% death, life
Compare
I Have a Rendezvous with Death
Alan Seeger
Avis
Paul Éluard
73% death
Compare
Maktoob
Alan Seeger
Avis
Paul Éluard
73%
Compare
There have been times
Alan Seeger
Avis
Paul Éluard
73%
Compare
I have sought Happiness
Alan Seeger
Avis
Paul Éluard
72%
Compare
The Aisne (1914-15)
Alan Seeger
Avis
Paul Éluard
70% life
Compare
As one of some fat tillage dispossessed
Alan Seeger

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Paul Éluard: Despair, Sorrow, Fear. Alan Seeger: Longing, Tenderness, Wonder.

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