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

Despair

Psychology
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

Complete loss of hope; utter despondency that goes beyond mere sadness to an existential void—in poetry, despair often drives elegy and protest, distinguishing itself from depression by its acute, focused quality and its capacity to test faith, resilience, and the limits of language itself.

Detailed Definition
Despair in poetry reaches beyond sadness to existential void. It appears through stark diction, broken forms, and images of abyss or silence. Poets channel despair into powerful lament, protest, or nihilistic vision, yet often the very act of articulation resists total negation. From Job to Plath, despair tests faith and resilience, rendering human fragility with uncompromising honesty.
Example
Example in poetry:
Despair in Pablo Neruda's "The Song of Despair" expresses sorrow and loss; Gerard Manley Hopkins' "Carrion Comfort" argues against submitting to despair; Joseph Warton's "ODE AGAINST DESPAIR" bids farewell to joy; The poem "Despair" from Cowley describes weeping eyes and wasted cries; Robert Montgomery's poetry links oppression, despair, and death; "I love, and I despair" becomes the speaker's recurring song in one eighteenth-century poem.
Additional Notes
Despair in poetry reaches beyond sadness to existential void, appearing through stark diction, broken forms, and images of abyss or silence. Poets channel despair into powerful lament, protest, or nihilistic vision, yet the very act of articulation often resists total negation. In teaching, distinguish despair from depression: despair is the complete loss of hope, while depression is a broader clinical state. Despair often appears in elegy, tragedy, and religious poetry, testing faith and resilience. Encourage students to examine how a poem's turn or volta can transform despair into tentative hope or resignation.
Also Known As
Hopelessness despondency depression desperation gloom Anguish desolation desperatio Miseria Pessimism
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