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 D

Decolonial Poetry Movement

Historical And Literary Periods
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 contemporary literary movement challenging colonial legacies, Western epistemic dominance, and Eurocentric frameworks in poetry. Rooted in postcolonial theory and Global South activism, seeking to decolonize poetic practice and literary institutions.

Detailed Definition
The Decolonial Poetry Movement transforms poetry through the explicit rejection of colonial and Western-centered aesthetics. Poets center Indigenous, African, Asian, and other non-Western perspectives. This movement appears in poetry through reclamation of Indigenous languages and forms, critique of Western literary institutions, centering of Global South voices, integration of oral traditions and non-Western aesthetics, explicit engagement with colonialism and its ongoing legacies, establishing poetry as a decolonizing practice and tool for epistemic justice.
Example
Example in poetry:
A poem written in a language other than the colonial language (or a mixture), actively challenging the linguistic legacy of empire, central to the Decolonial Poetry Movement; A work that reclaims pre-colonial myths, histories, or spiritual practices as a source of identity and power; A poem that deconstructs the vocabulary of colonial administration (e.g., 'civilized,' 'discovery,' 'development') to expose its inherent violence; A poem focusing on the physical and psychological de-territorialization of the formerly colonized subject.
Additional Notes
The Decolonial Poetry Movement critiques imperial legacy and reclaims indigenous and marginalised voices. Poets such as Derek Walcott and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o use hybrid language, oral rhythm, and historical revision to dismantle Eurocentric narratives. It intersects with postcolonial and activist poetics.
Also Known As
Decolonial Poetry Decolonization Poetry
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