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

Digression

Technique
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 temporary departure from the main subject to explore related ideas, anecdotes, or themes.

Detailed Definition
Digression veers into side topics, enriching texture in epic poetry like Chaucer's tales; it appears to humanize narrators, provide comic relief, or deepen world-building, reflecting life's meandering nature and broadening thematic scope in literature.
Example
Example in poetry:
Lord Byron's "Don Juan" frequently digresses into satirical commentary on politics, literature, and society; Laurence Sterne's influence encouraged poets to embrace digression as creative freedom rather than flaw; A poet might digress from describing a landscape to philosophical reflection on perception; John Ashbery's poems often digress so thoroughly that the original subject becomes unclear; Digression can provide comic relief in serious poems or serious reflection in comic works; Strategic digression enriches poetry by suggesting the mind's associative movements and refusal of linear logic
Additional Notes
Digression is a rhetorical technique involving temporary departure from the main subject to explore tangential ideas, anecdotes, or associative connections, then returning to the primary thread. Far from being undisciplined wandering, effective digression serves strategic purposes: it can provide necessary context, create emotional variation, develop character or theme through indirection, or mimic natural thought processes. Epic poetry frequently employs digression—Homer's extensive similes momentarily transport readers from battlefield to domestic scenes, while Dante's Commedia contains numerous digressions explaining theology or contemporary politics. In modern poetry, digression can reflect consciousness's associative nature or resist linear narrative tyranny. John Berryman's Dream Songs and Frank O'Hara's "I do this I do that" poems employ digressive structures that seem spontaneous but are carefully crafted. When analyzing digressions, students should ask what the apparent detour accomplishes: does it build suspense through delay, provide comic relief, deepen thematic resonance, or challenge narrative expectations? Understanding digression helps readers appreciate how poems organize thought beyond straightforward progression.
Also Known As
Excursus Digressio interpolated comment Parenthesis
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