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

Home › Glossary › Letter A

Abstract language

Concept
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Poetic language relying on general concepts instead of concrete imagery

Detailed Definition
Vocabulary referring to concepts, ideas, qualities, or conditions that cannot be perceived through the five senses, as opposed to concrete language that denotes physical, tangible things. In poetry, abstract language includes words like love, justice, beauty, truth, and freedom. While concrete imagery traditionally dominates poetic craft, abstract language serves philosophical and meditative verse. Effective poets often balance abstract and concrete, using imagery to embody abstractions or juxtaposing both types to create tension between conceptual and sensory experience.
Example
Example in poetry:
T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” uses “overwhelming question” to evoke abstract anxiety without concrete referent; Wallace Stevens’ “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” treats perception and reality through abstract philosophical lens; Gertrude Stein’s “Tender Buttons” dissolves objects into abstract linguistic play (“A kind in glass and a cousin, a spectacle”); Hart Crane’s “Voyages” employs abstract diction like “infinite consanguinity” to suggest emotional vastness; Mina Loy’s “Love Songs” uses abstractions like “desire’s geometry” to challenge romantic conventions; contemporary poet Claudia Rankine blends abstract language (“the self a construction”) with racialized experience in “Citizen.”
Additional Notes
Abstract language refers to words denoting ideas, emotions, or concepts rather than concrete images (e.g., “justice,” “despair”); while useful for philosophical themes, overuse can weaken sensory impact—balance with concrete diction is key.
Also Known As
Conceptual language Figurative diction Nonliteral writing Abstract diction
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