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

Langston Hughes Langston Hughes

Poet B

Fenton Johnson Fenton Johnson
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 75% Poems 87% Blended 80%
Swap sides Another related pair
Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes

1 February 1902 – 22 May 1967 (~65)
8 live poems · English

In the smoky jazz clubs of 1920s Harlem, where the saxophone's wail mingled with the clatter of typewriter keys, James Mercer Langston Hughes emerged as one of America's most vital poetic voices. Born on February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri, and passing away on May 22, 1967, in New York City, Hughes spent his sixty-five years crafting a literary legacy that would fundamentally reshape American poetry and give voice…

“Humor is when the joke's on you but hits the other fellow first—before it boomerangs.”

Neighbourhood: African American Poets, American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair
Fenton Johnson

Fenton Johnson

7 May 1888 – 17 September 1958 (~70)
2 live poems · English

In the sunlit streets of late-19th-century Chicago, where the Great Lakes breezes carried the promise of industry and the distant echoes of Southern migrations, Fenton Johnson entered the world on May 7, 1888. He would leave it on September 17, 1958, in the same city that had cradled his ambitions and tested his spirit, his seventy years a testament to the restless genius of an artist who refused to be confined by th…

Neighbourhood: African American Poets, American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Modernist Poets, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Peace

In time

Langston Hughes
Fenton Johnson
1888 1967
They overlapped for 57 years (1902–1958). When Langston Hughes was born, Fenton Johnson was about 14. Langston Hughes was about 56 when Fenton Johnson died.

On the map

About 795 km separate Joplin, Missouri, USA from Chicago, Illinois, 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

From the biographies

harlem renaissance

Langston Hughes: harlem renaissance, the weary blues, joplin, missouri, new york city, carrie mercer langston, mary patterson langston, not without laughter, scottsboro limited. Fenton Johnson: chicago, harlem renaissance, elijah johnson, jesse taylor johnson, a little dreaming, visions of the dusk, songs of the soil, tired.

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.

Evil
Langston Hughes
79%
Compare
Tired
Fenton Johnson
The Weary Blues
Langston Hughes
78% voice
Compare
Tired
Fenton Johnson
Litany
Langston Hughes
78% love
Compare
Declaration
Fenton Johnson
Mother to Son
Langston Hughes
77% voice
Compare
Tired
Fenton Johnson
Sun Song
Langston Hughes
75%
Compare
Tired
Fenton Johnson
Minstrel Man
Langston Hughes
74%
Compare
Tired
Fenton Johnson

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Langston Hughes: Longing, Sorrow, Despair. Fenton Johnson: Sorrow, Despair, Peace.

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