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.

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

Assumed voice poem

Device
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 poem written from a deliberately adopted persona or viewpoint distinct from the author's own, allowing for dramatic monologue, ventriloquism, and exploration of alternative consciousness and identity.

Detailed Definition
Assumed voice poem: A poetic work in which the speaker adopts a persona or identity distinct from the poet's own, speaking from the perspective of another person, historical figure, fictional character, or even an inanimate object. This dramatic technique allows poets to explore different viewpoints, experiences, and voices while maintaining artistic distance from their subject matter.
Example
Example in poetry:
Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess" spoken by the Duke; Tennyson's "Ulysses" in the voice of the aging hero; T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" as Prufrock's monologue; Carol Ann Duffy's "Mrs. Midas" told by Midas's wife
Additional Notes
Also called dramatic monologue or persona poem; requires the poet to fully inhabit another consciousness; distinct from simply writing about someone; effective for exploring historical figures, fictional characters, or marginalized voices
Also Known As
Persona poem Adopted speaker verse Mask lyric Dramtic Monologue
Skip to main content