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 B

Broken villanelle

Form
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 variant of the villanelle where traditional repetition or structure is interrupted

Detailed Definition
Broken villanelle is a modified villanelle that alters or omits the traditional refrain pattern, rhyme scheme, or 19-line structure to subvert the form’s cyclical inevitability; this variation allows poets to retain the villanelle’s obsessive quality while introducing disruption, irony, or narrative progression, as in Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art” or contemporary experimental adaptations.
Example
Example in poetry:
Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art” is a near-villanelle with subtle variations; Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle” adheres closely but bends refrains emotionally; Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s “Villanelle for Lost Things” breaks expected repetitions; Sylvia Plath’s “Mad Girl’s Love Song” fractures villanelle conventions for psychological effect; Contemporary poets like Danez Smith reimagine the form with political urgency.
Additional Notes
A villanelle (19 lines, two rhymes, two refrains) where the repeating lines (refrains) are intentionally altered, omitted, or changed in form or substance; This subverts the villanelle's expected rigorous structure, often for emotional or ironic effect; A post-modern variation.
Also Known As
fractured villanelle disrupted villanelle twisted villanelle form Villanelle Fragment Villanelle of Fragments
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