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

Franklin P. Adams Franklin P. Adams

Poet B

James Oppenheim James Oppenheim
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% Blended 71%
Swap sides Another related pair
Franklin P. Adams

Franklin P. Adams

15 November 1881 – 23 March 1960 (~79)
1 live poem · English

Franklin Pierce Adams, known almost everywhere in print by the compact and memorable signature “F. P. A.,” was born in Chicago, Illinois, on 15 November 1881, and died in New York City on 23 March 1960. During the first half of the twentieth century, he became one of America’s most recognizable newspaper humorists, a poet of urbane light verse, an editor, anthologist, critic, and central presence in the literary soci…

“There are plenty of good five-cent cigars in the country. The trouble is they cost a quarter. What this country really needs is a good five-cent nickel.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Edwardian Poets, Light Verse Poets
Emotional landscape: Irony, Longing, Sorrow
Listen Timeline Affinities
James Oppenheim

James Oppenheim

24 May 1882 – 4 August 1932 (~50)
2 live poems · English

James Oppenheim, born on 24 May 1882 in St. Paul, Minnesota, and dead on 4 August 1932 in New York City, belonged to that fervent generation of American writers who wanted literature to enter the streets. He was a poet, novelist, editor, social observer, and eventually an interpreter of the psyche. His name is most often remembered through “Bread and Roses,” the ringing labor poem that gave memorable language to the…

“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Modernist Poets, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets, Transcendentalists
Emotional landscape: Anger, Longing, Sorrow
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Franklin P. Adams
James Oppenheim
1881 1960
They overlapped for 51 years (1882–1932). When James Oppenheim was born, Franklin P. Adams was about 1. Franklin P. Adams was about 51 when James Oppenheim died.
Franklin P. Adams in history James Oppenheim in history Years they were given

On the map

About 558 km separate Chicago, Illinois, USA from St. Paul, Minnesota, USA. Both have ground in New York City and New York.

Franklin P. Adams

James Oppenheim

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.

Franklin P. Adams only

rich social wealth poverty lamp cigar fate

James Oppenheim only

life bread roses women collective beauty industrial creator spider humanity world philosophical

From the biographies

new york city york culture social

Franklin P. Adams: chicago, new york city, f. p. a., baseball's sad lexicon, the conning tower, algonquin round table, in cupid's court, tobogganing on parnassus. James Oppenheim: st. paul, minnesota, new york city, bread and roses, joseph oppenheim, lucy seckel, the nine-tenths, monday morning and other poems, hudson guild.

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 Rich Man
Franklin P. Adams
69%
Compare
Man, the Creator!
James Oppenheim
The Rich Man
Franklin P. Adams
65%
Compare
Bread and Roses
James Oppenheim

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

Franklin P. Adams

1899 Education at the University of Michigan
1904 Move to New York City
1904 Start of 'Always in Good Humor' Column
1910 Publication of 'Baseball's Sad Lexicon'
1914 Renaming of Column to 'The Conning Tower'
1920 Involvement in the New York Literary Scene
1920 Publication of 'The New York Times Book Review'
1934 Publication of 'The Best of F.P.A.'

James Oppenheim

1884 Relocation to New York City
1901 Early Work at Hudson Guild Settlement House
1905 Marriage to Lucy Seckel
1905 Teaching at New York Hebrew Technical School for Girls
1911 Publication of 'The Book of Poems'
1912 Friendship with Edna St. Vincent Millay
1915 Founding of the Poetry Society of America
1920 Publication of 'The Great American Novel'

Emotional landscapes

Franklin P. Adams: Irony, Longing, Sorrow. James Oppenheim: Anger, Longing, Sorrow.

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