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

Myra Viola Wilds Myra Viola Wilds

Poet B

Gwendolyn B. Bennett Gwendolyn B. Bennett
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 71% Poems 80% Blended 75%
Swap sides Another related pair
Myra Viola Wilds

Myra Viola Wilds

c. 1880 – c. 1935 (~55)
2 live poems · English

Myra Viola Wilds, born about 1880 and believed to have died about 1935, occupies an unusual and moving place in the history of American poetry. Her surviving reputation rests principally on a single small book, Thoughts of Idle Hours, published in 1915, yet the modest scale of that achievement should not obscure its significance. Wilds was a Kentucky-born poet, a dressmaker, a woman with limited formal education, and…

“Every line and verse in this little volume has been composed and written with my own hand notwithstanding the loss of my eyesight.”

Neighbourhood: African American Poets, American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Peace, Spirituality
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…

“You were always glad to see them. You always had an exciting time when you were with them.”

Neighbourhood: African American Poets, American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Love Poets, Modernist Poets, Political Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow

In time

Myra Viola Wilds
Gwendolyn B. Bennett
1880 1981
They overlapped for 34 years (1902–1935). When Gwendolyn B. Bennett was born, Myra Viola Wilds was about 22. Gwendolyn B. Bennett was about 33 when Myra Viola Wilds died.

On the map

About 1,499 km separate Mount Ollie, Kentucky, USA from Giddings, Texas, USA. Shared ground: United States.

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

Myra Viola Wilds only

Gwendolyn B. Bennett only

From the biographies

history

Myra Viola Wilds: mount ollie, kentucky, thoughts of idle hours, blindness, dressmaker, 1915 publication, sunshine, limited education. Gwendolyn B. Bennett: giddings, texas, harlem renaissance, heritage, to usward, the crisis, fire!!, wadsworth, nevada, brooklyn, new york.

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.

Dewdrops
Myra Viola Wilds
72%
Compare
Secret
Gwendolyn B. Bennett
Thoughts
Myra Viola Wilds
71%
Compare
Hatred
Gwendolyn B. Bennett
Thoughts
Myra Viola Wilds
70%
Compare
Secret
Gwendolyn B. Bennett
Dewdrops
Myra Viola Wilds
68% love
Compare
Dirge
Gwendolyn B. Bennett
Thoughts
Myra Viola Wilds
68% love
Compare
Dirge
Gwendolyn B. Bennett
Dewdrops
Myra Viola Wilds
65%
Compare
Hatred
Gwendolyn B. Bennett

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Myra Viola Wilds: Wonder, Peace, Spirituality. Gwendolyn B. Bennett: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow.

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