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

Burr

Craft Terms
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 burr is a deliberately retained roughness that catches the reader’s attention and resists smooth interpretation.

Detailed Definition
A burr may be an unexpected word, grammatical snag, tonal mismatch, or unresolved image. Unlike an accidental error, it has a purpose: it slows reading, exposes contradiction, or prevents a difficult experience from being made too neat. In a poem about trauma or social conflict, burrs can keep discomfort audible. During revision, the poet should test each roughness carefully. If it produces only confusion, remove it; if it creates thought or pressure, let it remain as a productive catch.
Example
Example in poetry:
A burr is a rough edge in language, such as an awkward consonant cluster that makes a line catch in the mouth; A poet may keep a burr like “cracked, black bark” because its harsh sounds suit the subject; An intentionally misspelled word can act as a verbal burr that resists smooth reading; During revision, a poet might remove an accidental burr when it distracts from the poem’s intended music
Additional Notes
A burr is an intentional snag in the poem’s surface, such as an awkward syntax, abrasive sound, unresolved image, or sudden tonal shift. It should create productive friction rather than result from carelessness. A burr may slow reading and force attention toward an ethical or emotional difficulty. Test it with readers, then decide whether its resistance deepens the poem or simply obscures meaning. Related terms include dissonance, roughness, and defamiliarization.
Also Known As
Spur Barb Borr Bur
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