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 B

Basilectal register

Concept
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

The lowest-prestige variety of language, often used to capture dialectal poetry.

Detailed Definition
Basilectal register employs the most colloquial, regionally marked, or socially stigmatized form of a language to assert authenticity, resistance, or cultural identity; in poetry, it challenges literary elitism by centering vernacular speech, as in dub poetry, African American Vernacular English verse, or Scots dialect writing.
Example
Example in poetry:
Basilectal register: In Zora Neale Hurston’s poetry, lines like “Ah done been in sorrow’s kitchen and licked out all the pots” use basilectal register—vernacular speech reflecting African American Southern dialect.

A basilect register: the most colloquial dialect form; Creole basilect in poetry; Street speech as basilect register; Oral poetry in vernacular basilect
Additional Notes
Basilectal register: The most informal or vernacular level of language in a speech community; in poetry, used for authenticity, irony, or social critique (e.g., dub poetry, Scots vernacular).

Basilect register is the lowest or most informal/non-standard register of a language used in a poem, often a local dialect or creole, contrasted with the formal acrolect.
Also Known As
Basilect register vernacular register low-prestige dialect base language variety base speech level common tongue basilect
Skip to main content