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 H

Happening

Art
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 spontaneous or loosely structured art event involving action, audience, and environment. In poetry, it can encourage participatory and unpredictable performance.

Detailed Definition
A happening is an event-based artwork, especially associated with the 1950s and 1960s, in which actions unfold in real time without the fixed boundaries of traditional theater. Audiences may be invited to participate, and chance may shape the outcome. Poets use happening-like methods in live readings, site-specific actions, collaborative texts, and improvised performances, emphasizing the poem as an event that exists through bodies, space, sound, and shared attention.
Example
Example in poetry:
A Happening-inspired poem can include instructions for readers to move, speak, or rearrange words during a live performance; Allan Kaprow’s Happenings suggest poetry events in which ordinary actions such as sweeping, eating, or opening doors become part of the work; A poet might perform a poem in a gallery while audience members add chalk marks to the floor, making the event temporary and collaborative; A classroom Happening poem could begin with each participant reading one found sentence at random, so no two performances are identical
Additional Notes
A happening is an event-based artwork in which actions, setting, chance, and audience participation may matter more than a finished object. Poets can use this idea in live, site-specific, collaborative, or improvisational work. Consider how audience response changes the poem and whether unpredictability is part of its form.
Also Known As
Happenings
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