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

gunwale

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

The upper edge of a ship's side; the rail running along the top of a vessel's hull, pronounced "gunnel" in maritime usage.

Detailed Definition
"Gunwale" (pronounced "gunnel") refers to the upper edge or rail of a ship's side, originally the strengthened wale (plank) that supported ship's guns. The term appears in maritime poetry and narratives describing shipboard life, naval battle, or sailing conditions. Poets depicting seascape used such specific nautical terminology for authentic atmosphere and technical precision. "Gunwale" appears in phrases describing loading ("loaded to the gunwales"), boarding ("over the gunwale"), or rough seas ("waves washing the gunwales"). Its technical specificity signaled maritime knowledge and created authentic naval atmosphere. The word's practical origins—the plank strengthened to bear cannon—reflected ship design evolution. Maritime poets valued such vocabulary for connecting readers to specific shipboard reality, grounding adventure narratives in material detail. The term's continuing usage in modern sailing maintains its technical currency while its literary associations evoke maritime tradition and seafaring culture.
Example
Example in poetry:
The sailor sat upon the ship's gunwale; "Leaning o'er the gunwale to watch the waves"; The gunwale is the upper edge of a ship's side; Pirates climbed over the gunwale during boarding; Seabirds perched upon the gunwale at dawn; Nets were hauled across the gunwale
Additional Notes
Gunwale appears in maritime literature, sea voyage narratives, and nautical descriptions. The term's pronunciation ("gunnel") versus spelling shows maritime vocabulary's oral tradition. Essential for analyzing nautical accuracy in literature, maritime culture representation, and how texts signal author's seafaring knowledge. The term's technical specificity distinguishes knowledgeable maritime writing from landlubber approximations. Related to other ship parts forming specialized vocabulary. Useful for discussing how literature incorporates technical terminology, whether for realism or atmosphere, and maritime culture's influence on literary language. The etymology (wale where guns were mounted) reflects naval history. Authors like Dana, Melville, and Conrad use precise nautical terms to establish authority and authenticate maritime settings.
Also Known As
ship’s edge boat’s rim bulwark
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