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

Jean Toomer Jean Toomer

Poet B

Raymond Garfield Dandridge Raymond Garfield Dandridge
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 65% Blended 65%
Swap sides Another related pair
Jean Toomer

Jean Toomer

26 December 1894 – 30 March 1967 (~73)
1 live poem · English

On December 26, 1894, in Washington, D.C., Nathan Pinchback Toomer was born into a world of racial complexity that would profoundly shape his literary vision and personal identity. Known to history as Jean Toomer, this enigmatic figure would produce one of the most celebrated works of the Harlem Renaissance before retreating into relative obscurity, leaving behind a legacy as puzzling as it is profound. His life stor…

“Talk about it only enough to do it. Dream about it only enough to feel it. Think about it only enough to understand it. Contemplate it only enough to be it.”

Neighbourhood: African American Poets, American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Modernist Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Nature Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sensuality, Sorrow
Listen Timeline Affinities
Raymond Garfield Dandridge

Raymond Garfield Dandridge

c. 1882 – 24 February 1930 (~48)
2 live poems · English

Raymond Garfield Dandridge emerged from the working-class streets of Cincinnati’s Price Hill neighborhood as one of the most resilient and distinctive voices in early twentieth-century African American poetry. Born around 1882 in a modest home that overlooked the rolling hills and river valleys of southern Ohio, he lived a life defined by both vibrant physical promise and profound physical limitation. By the time he…

“Tis good to make the best of it.”

Neighbourhood: African American Poets, American Poets, Death & Mortality, Harlem Renaissance, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Spirituality
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Jean Toomer
Raymond Garfield Dandridge
1882 1967
They overlapped for 37 years (1894–1930). When Jean Toomer was born, Raymond Garfield Dandridge was about 12. Jean Toomer was about 36 when Raymond Garfield Dandridge died.
Jean Toomer in history Raymond Garfield Dandridge in history Years they were given

On the map

About 646 km separate Washington, D.C., USA from Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. Shared ground: United States.

Jean Toomer

Raymond Garfield Dandridge

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.

Jean Toomer only

beauty dusk world rural

Raymond Garfield Dandridge only

life death courage valuation self african excellence

From the biographies

harlem renaissance

Jean Toomer: washington d.c., harlem renaissance, sparta, georgia, pinckback benton stewart pinchback, nina pinchback toomer, karenitha, cotton song, reapers. Raymond Garfield Dandridge: price hill, penciled poems, the poet and other poems, zalka peetruza, paul laurence dunbar, harlem renaissance, hemiplegia, ellen c. dandridge.

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.

Karintha
Jean Toomer
68%
Compare
Time to Die
Raymond Garfield Dandridge
Karintha
Jean Toomer
64%
Compare
Valuation
Raymond Garfield Dandridge

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1894 Death of Robert Louis Stevenson
1894 Valéry begins his lifelong notebooks
1895 Publication of 'The Red Badge of Courage'
1895 The X-Ray Discovery
1896 Publication of 'A Shropshire Lad'
1896 Publication of 'The Story of the Other Wise Man'
1897 J.J. Thomson discovers the electron at the Cavendish Laboratory
1897 Ronald Ross Demonstrates Mosquito Transmission of Malaria

Jean Toomer

1901 Jean Toomer's Mother Remarries
1909 Jean Toomer Attends M Street High School
1920 Jean Toomer Moves to Georgia
1920 Jean Toomer's Involvement with the Harlem Renaissance
1931 Jean Toomer's Marriage to Margery Latimer
1934 Jean Toomer's Spiritual Awakening
1935 Jean Toomer's Involvement with the Federal Writers' Project
1940 Jean Toomer's Move to Washington, D.C.

Raymond Garfield Dandridge

1912 Dandridge earns a living by telephone coal orders
1917 First Publication: Penciled Poems
1920 Dandridge serves as literary editor of the Cincinnati Journal
1920 Marriage to Mary Dandridge
1920 Publication of The Poet and Other Poems
1921 Health Challenges and Paralysis
1923 Dandridge appears in Negro Poets and Their Poems
1928 Publication of Zalka Peetruza and Other Poems

Emotional landscapes

Jean Toomer: Longing, Sensuality, Sorrow. Raymond Garfield Dandridge: Sorrow, Despair, Spirituality.

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