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

Asterism

Astrology
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 recognized star pattern, smaller than a constellation, often with mythological significance in astrological lore. Poets draw on asterisms for symbolic clusters illuminating personal myths.

Detailed Definition
Unlike constellations, asterisms are informal groupings like the Big Dipper, integrated into sidereal astrology for fixed star influences. In poetry, they appear in folk verses or Blake's visionary works, representing clustered fates or guiding lights. Literary contexts use asterisms to evoke ancestral stories, as in Native American-inspired poetry. Their compact brilliance suits metaphors of unity in diversity, where stellar asterisms mirror life's interconnected patterns, inspiring verses on guidance, heritage, and the poetic mapping of night skies onto inner worlds.
Example
Example in poetry:
Ptolemy's asterism inspires in Milton's "Paradise Lost": "The Bear's asterism wheels above Eden's lost gate."; In Emily Dickinson's star poems, asterisms cluster: "Asterisms of hope flicker in night's vast field."; William Wordsworth contemplates asterism paths: "The Plough's asterism guides the wanderer's lonely trail."; Modern astronomer-poet A.R. Ammons maps asterisms: "Asterisms etch patterns on the dome of human fate."; In Native American-inspired verse by Joy Harjo, asterisms tell stories: "Coyote's asterism dances in the winter sky's tale."
Additional Notes
Asterisms, like the Pleiades, carry lore beyond constellations; in astrology, they influence via fixed stars within. Poetry harnesses them for mythic clusters, echoing in Keats' starry nights—context: distinguished from zodiacal asterisms; tip: research cultural variants (e.g., Chinese) to enrich analyses, advising students to use asterisms as metaphors for familial bonds or scattered fates in verse.
Also Known As
Constellation Pattern Star Group
Skip to main content