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

Gwendolyn B. Bennett Gwendolyn B. Bennett

Poet B

Walter J. Turner Walter J. Turner
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 58% Poems 80% Blended 68%
Swap sides Another related pair
Gwendolyn B. Bennett

Gwendolyn B. Bennett

8 July 1902 – 30 May 1981 (~79)
3 live poems · English

Gwendolyn B. Bennett was a radiant force in American literature and art, a woman whose life wove together the threads of creativity, resilience, and quiet revolution during one of the most electrifying cultural awakenings in the nation's history. Born on July 8, 1902, in Giddings, Texas, and passing away on May 30, 1981, in Reading, Pennsylvania, at the age of seventy-eight, Bennett embodied the spirit of the Harlem…

“An ebony flute ought to be very effective for most any sort of singing for that matter.”

Neighbourhood: African American Poets, American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Love Poets, Modernist Poets, Political Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow
Listen Timeline Affinities
Walter J. Turner

Walter J. Turner

13 October 1884 – 18 November 1946 (~62)
2 live poems · English

In the pantheon of early twentieth-century poetry, certain names blaze with enduring brilliance while others flicker in the margins of literary history, their contributions underappreciated or nearly forgotten. Walter James Redfern Turner, born on October 13, 1884, in South Melbourne, Australia, belongs to this latter category—a poet, critic, and cultural polymath whose work once commanded the admiration of W.B. Yeat…

“Mozart's mental grip never loosens; he never abandons himself to any one sense; even at his most ecstatic moments his mind is vigorous, alert, and on the wing. He dives unerringly on to his finest ideas like a bird of prey, and once an idea is seized he soars off again with an undiminished power.”

Neighbourhood: Edwardian Poets, Georgian Poets, Modernist Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Wonder, Sorrow
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Gwendolyn B. Bennett
Walter J. Turner
1884 1981
They overlapped for 45 years (1902–1946). When Gwendolyn B. Bennett was born, Walter J. Turner was about 18. Gwendolyn B. Bennett was about 44 when Walter J. Turner died.
Gwendolyn B. Bennett in history Walter J. Turner in history Years they were given

On the map

About 14,349 km separate Giddings, Texas, USA from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Different countries, different weather — unless a poem carries one landscape into the other.

Gwendolyn B. Bennett

Walter J. Turner

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.

Gwendolyn B. Bennett only

hatred power memory hands dirge love beloved secret hair desire blue

Walter J. Turner only

world romance volcanoes loss romantic inner soul social girl dance face saturn

From the biographies

Gwendolyn B. Bennett: giddings, texas, harlem renaissance, heritage, to usward, the crisis, fire!!, wadsworth, nevada, brooklyn, new york. Walter J. Turner: south melbourne, w.b. yeats, delphine marguerite dubuis, the hunter and other poems, romance, georgian poetry, bloomsbury, siegfried sassoon.

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.

Dirge
Gwendolyn B. Bennett
72%
Compare
The Dancer
Walter J. Turner
Secret
Gwendolyn B. Bennett
70%
Compare
Romance
Walter J. Turner
Secret
Gwendolyn B. Bennett
70%
Compare
The Dancer
Walter J. Turner
Dirge
Gwendolyn B. Bennett
69%
Compare
Romance
Walter J. Turner
Hatred
Gwendolyn B. Bennett
66%
Compare
Romance
Walter J. Turner
Hatred
Gwendolyn B. Bennett
66%
Compare
The Dancer
Walter J. Turner

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1902 The Wright 1902 glider achieves practical three-axis control
1903 Publication of 'The Path of Dreams'
1903 Publication of 'The Souls of Black Folk'
1903 Wright Brothers Achieve First Powered Flight Using Wind Tunnel Research
1906 Appointment as editor of Punch
1906 Publication of The Highwayman
1906 Upton Sinclair Publishes 'The Jungle'
1907 Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature

Gwendolyn B. Bennett

1906 Family Relocation to Washington, D.C.
1910 Father's Kidnapping Incident
1921 Education at Howard University
1927 Publication of 'The Ebony Flute'
1930 Divorce from James W. Bennett
1931 Birth of Daughter, Gwendolyn Bennett
1945 Teaching Career at Various Institutions
1960 Recognition and Literary Contributions

Walter J. Turner

1900 Death of Father
1907 Relocation to England
1914 Publication of 'The Last of the Old School'
1915 Friendship with W.B. Yeats
1921 Publication of 'The Poet's Song'
1932 Publication of 'The Music of the Spheres'
1935 Recognition as Music Critic
1940 Publication of 'The Collected Poems'

Emotional landscapes

Gwendolyn B. Bennett: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow. Walter J. Turner: Longing, Wonder, Sorrow.

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