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.

I want a simpler life, without the hassle of being online. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit the life I want.

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.

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

Accentual poetry

Meter
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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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

Verse that counts only stressed syllables per line, ignoring unstressed ones

Detailed Definition
Accentual poetry is a metrical system that counts only the number of stressed syllables per line, disregarding the total number of syllables or the pattern of unstressed ones; common in Old English and Anglo-Saxon verse (e.g., Beowulf), it prioritizes rhythmic emphasis over syllabic regularity, allowing for flexible line lengths while maintaining a strong oral and musical quality through recurring beats.
Example
Example in poetry:
Old English "Beowulf": "Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum" uses four strong stresses per line regardless of syllable count; Modern example: W.H. Auden’s "The Witnesses" employs consistent stress patterns (e.g., four beats per line) while varying syllables; The nursery rhyme "Hickory Dickory Dock" demonstrates accentual rhythm with two strong beats per line; Ezra Pound’s translation of "The Seafarer" retains Old English accentual structure with dominant stresses overriding syllable count
Additional Notes
Accentual poetry counts only stressed syllables per line, ignoring unstressed ones—common in Old English and Anglo-Saxon verse (e.g., Beowulf); differs from accentual-syllabic meter used in most English poetry.
Also Known As
Stress-count verse Strong-beat poetry Anglo-Saxon meter Accentual verse Beat-based poetry Stress verse Stress-timed verse
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