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

Guinea

Archaic Terms
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 former British gold coin, originally worth a pound but later fixed at twenty-one shillings, often linked with luxury prices.

Detailed Definition
The guinea was minted from gold largely sourced from West Africa, which gave it its name, and quickly became associated with high-status transactions—professional fees, racehorses, and luxury goods. In poetry and prose, “guinea” conjures elegance and class distinction, where sums are reckoned in guineas rather than mere pounds. It can subtly signal social hierarchy or moral unease about wealth rooted in colonial exploitation. Poets use it to capture a bygone monetary world whose terminology still carries echoes of snobbery, aspiration, and the glittering surface of genteel life.
Example
Example in poetry:
The doctor’s fee was five guineas, weighed more in pride than in gold; At the auction, a thoroughbred went for a thousand guineas and a thousand whispered envies; A governess, paid in guineas, measured her worth in coin and condescension; Poets invoke guineas to hint at polished surfaces hiding colonial shadows and class.
Additional Notes
Guinea is strongly tied to British social history, often used to price luxury goods, racehorses, professional fees, and high-status services. In poetry it can thus connote gentility, pretension, or the hidden colonial origins of wealth (the name itself refers to West African gold). Unlike pounds, which are universal, guineas suggest a world of auctions, medical consultations, and elite transactions. Poets may use guineas to explore class anxiety or to critique the genteel veneer of empire. Teachers can invite students to notice how guineas often appear in contexts of class boundaries and specialist labour rather than everyday trade.
Also Known As
guinea coin
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