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

Apprehension

Psychology
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

A state of anxious foreboding or fearful anticipation of future misfortune or danger; in poetry, apprehension builds suspense and tension, often through vague or looming threats that unsettle the speaker and reader alike.

Detailed Definition
Apprehension fuels poetic tension through suspended time and hesitant cadence. It captures the moment before revelation or disaster, where the mind projects fearful outcomes. Poets use ambiguity and withholding to mirror this state, making the reader share the character's uneasy waiting, whether in narrative poems, dramatic monologues, or lyrical reflections on personal or historical threats.
Example
Example in poetry:
Apprehension in D.H. Lawrence's "Apprehension" roars "like a beast in a cave"; Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "An Apprehension" explores the haunting dread of unknown futures; W.H. Auden's "The Watchers" creates an air of watchfulness and underlying threat; In "Whilst Leila Sleeps," apprehension builds as a mother and daughter flee authorities; Sylvia Plath's "Apprehensions" delivers an unnerving journey through existential crisis; The speaker in "Apprehension" by James Anderson Fraser faces the lonely road with dread.
Additional Notes
Apprehension in poetry creates tension through suspended time and hesitant cadence, often capturing the moment just before revelation or disaster. Unlike fear, which responds to an immediate threat, apprehension focuses on future uncertainty. Poets frequently use conditional language, unanswered questions, and imagery of shadows or thresholds to convey this state. Teaching tip: have students examine how a poem's rhythm slows or becomes irregular when apprehension rises. Apprehension often precedes moments of dramatic irony in narrative poetry, where the reader knows more than the character, heightening the emotional impact.
Also Known As
Foreboding anxious anticipation presentiment uneasy expectation Dread Fear Insecurity Misgiving Nervousness Perception Trepidation Worry
Skip to main content