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 F

Folk dance

Dance
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 traditional communal dance passed through generations within a particular culture or region. In poetry, it evokes heritage, collective memory, local identity, celebration, and continuity.

Detailed Definition
Folk dance is a broad term for dances shaped and transmitted within communities rather than created primarily for the professional stage. Such dances often accompany weddings, harvests, religious festivals, work, or seasonal rites, and their steps may preserve local histories and social values. Poets use folk dance to evoke cultural belonging, ancestral memory, and the physical survival of tradition. The image can celebrate communal vitality, but it may also express nostalgia, displacement, or concern that modern life is weakening the customs that once joined people to place.
Example
Example in poetry:
“At harvest’s end the village gathered for a folk dance remembered by every generation” links movement with inherited custom; A poet may use folk dance to express attachment to a particular landscape and community; “Exiles dreamed of the old folk dance their feet still knew” makes dance a form of cultural memory; Folk dance imagery can celebrate belonging while also suggesting displacement, threatened traditions, or continuity despite social change.
Additional Notes
Folk dance is a broad category shaped by local custom, communal memory, and social use rather than by one universal technique. In poetry, it can represent continuity between generations, attachment to place, or the survival of identity under pressure. It may also be idealised, so students should ask whether the poem romanticises rural life or recognises labour, conflict, and change. Related ideas include oral tradition, seasonal festival, communal ritual, regional costume, migration, cultural memory, and intangible heritage.
Also Known As
Traditional dance Vernacular dance Reel
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