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

Annona

Mythology
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

Personification of the grain supply to Rome, crucial for urban stability and imperial propaganda.

Detailed Definition
Annona ensured the steady flow of grain from provinces like Egypt to feed Rome’s populace. In poetry, especially under the Empire, she appears alongside Ceres or Abundantia as a symbol of imperial benevolence, civic order, or the precariousness of food security during times of crisis or satire.
Example
Example in poetry:
Annona, goddess of the grain supply, appears in civic and agricultural poetry: "Annona fills the granaries, her arms heavy with wheat from Egypt"; Imperial panegyrics praise her as Rome’s sustenance: "Without Annona, the legions falter and the forum falls silent"; A poet might lament famine: "Annona has turned her back—our bread is ash"; In allegory, she partners with Ceres: "Ceres sows, Annona stores—the twin pillars of peace."
Additional Notes
Annona was vital to the Roman state’s stability—the “annona” referred to the grain dole that fed Rome’s urban poor, sourced largely from Egypt and Sicily; deified as a goddess, she often appears with Ceres or Abundantia in imperial art, symbolizing food security as a pillar of imperial legitimacy; disruptions in the annona could spark riots; poets reference her in panegyrics praising emperors for ensuring supply or in laments during famines; her worship reflects the Roman state’s logistical sophistication and the political weight of feeding a million souls.
Also Known As
grain supply harvest goddess abundance personified
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