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

Douglas Malloch Douglas Malloch

Poet B

Joaquin Miller Joaquin Miller
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 69% Poems 83% Blended 75%
Swap sides Another related pair
Douglas Malloch

Douglas Malloch

5 May 1877 – 2 July 1938 (~61)
2 live poems · English

Douglas Malloch was born on 5 May 1877 in Muskegon, Michigan, a city whose identity had been built in large measure from timber, water, sawmills, ships, and the difficult labor of turning northern forests into the materials of American expansion. He died on 2 July 1938, leaving behind a body of verse that was once widely circulated in newspapers, trade journals, recitation books, schoolrooms, and inspirational anthol…

“The difference between a stepping-stone and a stumbling block is how high you raise your foot.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Children's Verse, Edwardian Poets, Georgian Poets, Nature Poets
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Peace, Spirituality
Listen Timeline Affinities
Joaquin Miller

Joaquin Miller

8 September 1837 – 17 February 1913 (~76)
2 live poems · English

Joaquin Miller, born Cincinnatus Hiner Miller on September 8, 1837, and dead on February 17, 1913, lived a life that seemed designed to invite legend. He was a poet, journalist, lawyer, teacher, dramatist, lecturer, rancher, and relentless self-inventor. To admirers in the nineteenth century, he was the “Poet of the Sierras,” a bard who had given the American West its own grand, romantic voice. To skeptics, he was an…

“The art of poetry is found in books; the inspiration of poetry is found only in Nature.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Folk & Ballad Poets, Love Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Douglas Malloch
Joaquin Miller
1837 1938
They overlapped for 37 years (1877–1913). When Douglas Malloch was born, Joaquin Miller was about 40. Douglas Malloch was about 36 when Joaquin Miller died.
Douglas Malloch in history Joaquin Miller in history Years they were given

On the map

About 323 km separate Muskegon, Michigan, USA from Indiana, USA. Shared ground: United States.

Douglas Malloch

Joaquin Miller

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

life

Douglas Malloch only

scrub star highway grass heart wood understands forest stranger

Joaquin Miller only

brother envy love peace trouble pain cain biblical

From the biographies

popular

Douglas Malloch: muskegon, lumbermen's poet, be the best of whatever you are, the passing of the pine, great lakes region, american lumberman, progressive era, regional poet. Joaquin Miller: poet of the sierras, oregon territory, life amongst the modocs, kit carson's ride, songs of the sierras, songs of the sun-lands, theresa dyer, abigail leland.

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.

Be the Best of Whatever You Are
Douglas Malloch
78% life
Compare
Is It Worth While?
Joaquin Miller
Who Understands
Douglas Malloch
76%
Compare
Is It Worth While?
Joaquin Miller
Who Understands
Douglas Malloch
71%
Compare
Life
Joaquin Miller
Be the Best of Whatever You Are
Douglas Malloch
70% life
Compare
Life
Joaquin Miller

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1879 Edison Demonstrates the Carbon-Filament Incandescent Lamp
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'

Douglas Malloch

1895 Education at the University of Michigan
1916 Publication of 'The Lumberjack's Poet'
1920 Move to Chicago
1922 Publication of 'Songs of the Lumberjacks'
1925 Involvement with the Michigan Poetry Society
1930 Publication of 'The Best of Whatever You Are'
1935 Recognition as the 'Lumbermen's Poet'
1936 Final Years in Muskegon

Joaquin Miller

1852 Family Relocation to Oregon
1859 Participation in the Battle of Castle Crags
1868 First Poetry Collection Published
1869 Publication of 'Joaquin et al.'
1870 Success of 'The Danites in the Sierras'
1871 Publication of 'Songs of the Sierras'
1876 Marriage to Laura Miller
1880 Relocation to California

Emotional landscapes

Douglas Malloch: Tenderness, Peace, Spirituality. Joaquin Miller: Sorrow, Despair, Longing.

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