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 G

Gesture

Performance
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

Purposeful movement of the hands, face, or body while reciting. It can reinforce meaning, rhythm, or mood.

Detailed Definition
Gesture gives visual shape to spoken poetry. A hand movement may mark a turn in thought, a changed posture may reveal a speaker's vulnerability, and a stillness may make a line more intense. Effective gesture grows from the poem's language and emotional logic rather than decorating every phrase. In live performance, it helps connect voice and body, allowing listeners to see the poem's energy as well as hear it.
Example
Example in poetry:
A poet opens both hands while saying “the sky,” making the image feel expansive without distracting from the words; During a poem about loss, the performer lets their hands fall still at a quiet line, using restraint as a meaningful gesture; A reader points gently toward the floor when describing roots, grounding the image physically; In a spoken-word poem, the performer repeats a small hand motion with each refrain to give the audience a visual pattern
Additional Notes
Gesture in performance includes purposeful movement of hands, face, posture, and gaze that clarifies an image, relationship, or emotional turn. Effective gestures are specific, economical, and timed to the language; repetitive or illustrative movement can compete with the poem’s sound and imagery. Compare blocking, which concerns larger stage movement, and stillness, which can heighten a crucial line. Rehearse with one intentional gesture per major shift, then remove any movement that does not add meaning.
Also Known As
Physical Gesture Movement
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