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

Burden of proof

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 obligation to provide evidence or justification for poetic claims or assertions

Detailed Definition
Burden of proof in poetic argument refers to the obligation of the speaker or persona to substantiate claims, especially in persuasive or philosophical verse; while not a formal poetic device, the concept illuminates how poets construct ethos, use evidence (myth, observation, logic), and anticipate counterarguments to convince readers—central to Horatian epistles, Augustan satire, and modern polemical poetry.
Example
Example in poetry:
In legal poetry like Auden’s “Law Like Love,” the burden of proof shifts metaphorically: “Law is the wisdom of the old”; Satirical verse: “Prove you’re human—recite a sonnet” – modern take on evidentiary demand; Not a standard poetic device; often misapplied—poetry typically avoids legalistic proof; Better understood as rhetorical stance: “Show me your scars, then I’ll believe your war.”
Additional Notes
Logical burden requiring substantiation. Rhetorical term occasionally applied to argumentative poetry. Related: dialectic, thesis. More common in essay than poetry analysis but useful for persuasive verse.
Other Meanings of “Burden of proof”
Also Known As
Onus probandi Evidential obligation Argumentative responsibility Proof requirement evidentiary burden
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