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

Dedicatory opening

Structure
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

An introductory section of a poem that offers dedication or homage to a person, place, or idea; it establishes context, addresses a patron or muse, and sets the poem's tone and purpose.

Detailed Definition
A dedicatory opening is an introductory stanza, epigraph, or prefatory line in a poem that explicitly addresses or honors a specific individual, group, or muse, establishing a relational frame for the work that follows; functioning as both gesture and thematic overture, it may invoke inspiration, gratitude, or shared history, as in Neruda’s dedications to Matilde or Milton’s invocation of the Muse in “Paradise Lost,” anchoring the poem in a web of personal or cultural connection.
Example
Example in poetry:
Shelley’s "Adonais" opens: "I weep for Adonais—he is dead!"; Milton’s "Lycidas" begins by invoking the muse for Edward King; Wordsworth’s "Elegiac Stanzas" opens with dedication to his brother John; Keats’s "Endymion" begins: "A thing of beauty is a joy forever"—dedicated to Leigh Hunt; Auden’s "In Memory of W.B. Yeats" opens with a direct commemorative address.
Additional Notes
A dedicatory opening formally addresses or honors a person, muse, or cause at a poem’s start—common in epics (Milton invoking the Muse) or patronage poetry (Donne to Lucy, Countess of Bedford). It sets tone, stakes, and audience. Modern dedications may be ironic or subversive (e.g., dedicating to “the IRS”). Students should note how the dedication frames interpretation: does it invite intimacy, assert authority, or establish lineage?
Also Known As
Dedication prologue Introductory homage Opening encomium Prefatory address Prefatory lines Tribute opening
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