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

Autonomy

Philosophy
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

Autonomy is the capacity for self-governance and independent moral reasoning. It underpins Enlightenment ideals of individual freedom and rational agency.

Detailed Definition
Poetry frequently explores autonomy as resistance to external control—be it social, political, or metaphysical. Through lyrical voice or narrative persona, poets assert the sovereignty of consciousness, often framing creative expression itself as an act of autonomous will against conformity or determinism.
Example
Example in poetry:
Emily Dickinson’s self-contained poetic voice asserts intellectual independence from social and religious norms; Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” declares the poet’s sovereign selfhood amid democratic multiplicity; Adrienne Rich’s later work reclaims female autonomy through confessional yet defiant lyricism; Langston Hughes’s “I, Too” affirms Black dignity and self-possession despite exclusion; Sylvia Plath’s Ariel poems wrestle with autonomy amid psychological and patriarchal constraints; Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies position the poet as autonomous witness to existence beyond consolation.
Additional Notes
Autonomy in philosophy—particularly Kantian ethics—denotes self-legislation through reason, not mere independence. In poetry, autonomy often appears as the lyric “I” asserting voice against social, political, or linguistic constraints. Think of Emily Dickinson’s sealed letters or Adrienne Rich’s feminist reclamation of voice. However, poststructuralist critiques (e.g., Butler, Derrida) question the myth of the sovereign subject, making poetic autonomy a contested, often ironic ideal. Professors might use this term to analyze how poems negotiate agency within systems of power or language. Related terms include subjectivity, freedom, and authenticity.
Also Known As
Self-determination Self-governance Free will Freedom Self determination
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