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

gleann

Dialect
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

The Irish word for a valley or glen, a beloved landscape term in Irish poetry associated with shelter, pastoral beauty, community, and the intimacy of enclosed natural space.

Detailed Definition
Gleann (anglicised as glen in many placenames) describes the sheltered valley between hills, one of the most characteristically beautiful features of the Irish landscape and a persistent image of pastoral peace and belonging. In the song tradition, gleanntáin (little valleys) are celebrated in verses of local attachment where the specific named glen becomes a vessel for all the feelings of home and community. The gleann contrasts with the exposed mountain or open sea as a space of human shelter and natural abundance. Poets working in the tradition of the dán grá (love poem) frequently set their verses in the gleann, associating its shelter with the protected space of mutual love.
Example
Example in poetry:
The gleann shelters villages from harsh mountain winds; Poets idealize the gleann as place of peace and natural beauty; The gleann echoes with sounds of streams and bird calls throughout seasons; Historical battles fought in narrow gleann determined regional power dynamics; The gleann provides fertile soil for agriculture in otherwise rugged terrain; Metaphorically, the gleann represents refuge from chaos of wider world.
Additional Notes
Gleann (valley/glen) is a sheltered landscape feature in Irish poetry, often associated with peace, beauty, and secrecy. It provides protection from winds and enemies, making it a site for settlement or refuge. Poets use gleann imagery to evoke intimacy and tranquility. However, glens can also be sites of ambush or tragedy, adding complexity to their symbolism. The gleann is a microcosm of the wider landscape, containing streams, woods, and hills. It is a beloved setting for romantic and pastoral verse.
Also Known As
valley glen dale hollow
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