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

J. Milton Hayes J. Milton Hayes

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.

Strongly related
Their work already rhymes in the catalogue. The rest of this page is the story around that rhyme.
Biography 59% Blended 59%
Swap sides Another related pair
J. Milton Hayes

J. Milton Hayes

1884 – 1940 (~56)
1 live poem · English

Joseph Milton Hayes, known to the public as J. Milton Hayes, was born in Bristol on 13 January 1884 and died on 6 February 1940. During his lifetime he became one of the best-known writers of recitation verse in Britain, a poet whose work was heard as often as it was read. His celebrity rested especially on “The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God,” a narrative poem whose opening line, “There’s a one-eyed yellow idol…

“I wrote The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God in five hours, but I had it all planned out. It isn't poetry and it does not pretend to be, but it does what it sets out to do.”

Neighbourhood: Folk & Ballad Poets, Light Verse Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
Listen Timeline Affinities
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…

“Few of us know that the art of the African Negro is the basic foundation of all the new schools of art in Europe.”

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

In time

J. Milton Hayes
Gwendolyn B. Bennett
1884 1981
They overlapped for 39 years (1902–1940). When Gwendolyn B. Bennett was born, J. Milton Hayes was about 18. Gwendolyn B. Bennett was about 38 when J. Milton Hayes died.
J. Milton Hayes in history Gwendolyn B. Bennett in history Years they were given

On the map

About 7,677 km separate Leeds, Yorkshire, England from Giddings, Texas, USA. Different countries, different weather — unless a poem carries one landscape into the other.

J. Milton Hayes

Gwendolyn B. Bennett

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.

J. Milton Hayes only

idol woman jewel yellow green room

Gwendolyn B. Bennett only

hatred power memory hands dirge love beloved secret hair desire blue

From the biographies

J. Milton Hayes: bristol, the green eye of the little yellow god, khatmandu, the punch and judy man, edwardian period, music halls, variety theatres, public recitations. 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.

The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God
J. Milton Hayes
73%
Compare
Dirge
Gwendolyn B. Bennett
The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God
J. Milton Hayes
72%
Compare
Hatred
Gwendolyn B. Bennett
The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God
J. Milton Hayes
72%
Compare
Secret
Gwendolyn B. Bennett

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

J. Milton Hayes

1909 Early Stage Career in Leeds
1911 Publication of 'The Green Eye of the Yellow God'
1914 Marriage to Elsie Hayes
1915 Move to London for Career Advancement
1920 Publication of 'The Whitest Man I Know'
1925 Performance at the Royal Variety Performance
1930 Publication of 'The Punch and Judy Man'
1939 Final Performance Before Illness

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

Emotional landscapes

J. Milton Hayes: Sorrow, Despair, Longing. Gwendolyn B. Bennett: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow.

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