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

Roscoe C. Jamison Roscoe C. Jamison

Poet B

Joseph Seamon Cotter Jr. Joseph Seamon Cotter Jr.
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 81% Blended 81%
Swap sides Another related pair
Roscoe C. Jamison

Roscoe C. Jamison

c. 1888 – 28 March 1918 (~30)
1 live poem · English

In the shadowed corridors of early twentieth-century American literature, where the voices of African American poets often echoed against the unyielding walls of racial indifference, Roscoe Conkling Jamison stands as a poignant figure—a man whose brief life burned with the quiet fire of genius, only to be extinguished far too soon. Born around 1888 in the small town of Winchester, Tennessee, and passing away on March…

Neighbourhood: African American Poets, American Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Sorrow, Anger
Joseph Seamon Cotter Jr.

Joseph Seamon Cotter Jr.

2 September 1895 – 3 February 1919 (~24)
2 live poems · English

In the shadowed corridors of early twentieth-century American literature, where the voices of African American poets were just beginning to echo with unprecedented force, Joseph Seamon Cotter Jr. stands as a luminous yet fleeting figure—a young man whose brief span of years belied the depth of his insight and the innovative spark of his artistry. Born on September 2, 1895, in Louisville, Kentucky, and passing away on…

Neighbourhood: African American Poets, American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Wonder, Anger

In time

Roscoe C. Jamison
Joseph Seamon Cotter Jr.
1888 1919
They overlapped for 24 years (1895–1918). When Joseph Seamon Cotter Jr. was born, Roscoe C. Jamison was about 7. Joseph Seamon Cotter Jr. was about 23 when Roscoe C. Jamison died.

On the map

About 343 km separate Winchester, Tennessee, USA from Louisville, Kentucky, 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

Roscoe C. Jamison only

Joseph Seamon Cotter Jr. only

From the biographies

fisk university tuberculosis african racial

Roscoe C. Jamison: winchester tennessee, negro soldiers, the crisis, fisk university, william f. neil, great war, jim crow, st. joseph missouri. Joseph Seamon Cotter Jr.: louisville kentucky, tuberculosis, the band of gideon and other lyrics, on the fields of france, florence olivia, fisk university, harlem renaissance, joseph seamon cotter sr..

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 Negro Soldiers
Roscoe C. Jamison
79% african
Compare
The Band of Gideon
Joseph Seamon Cotter Jr.
The Negro Soldiers
Roscoe C. Jamison
65%
Compare
Rain Music
Joseph Seamon Cotter Jr.

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Roscoe C. Jamison: Spirituality, Sorrow, Anger. Joseph Seamon Cotter Jr.: Spirituality, Wonder, Anger.

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