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

Hone

Craft 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

To hone is to sharpen a poem’s language, perception, or argument through focused refinement.

Detailed Definition
Honing involves making choices more exact rather than simply making the poem prettier. The poet may replace a general verb with a physical one, adjust a line break to sharpen implication, or remove an image that duplicates an existing effect. A honed poem has edges that direct attention and prevent energy from dispersing. In literary context, honing should serve the poem’s distinctive intelligence: it clarifies what this speaker sees and how this particular form allows that seeing to occur.
Example
Example in poetry:
To hone a poem is to sharpen its language, rhythm, and focus through deliberate revision; A poet may hone “the bird flew away quickly” into “the wren cut north”; Reading aloud helps hone a line’s stresses and exposes slack phrasing; A poet can hone a recurring image until each appearance gains a more precise variation
Additional Notes
To hone is to refine language until its image, rhythm, and implication become more exact and forceful. Honing may involve replacing a vague verb, removing a familiar adjective, testing a line aloud, or selecting a more revealing detail. It does not always mean making the poem simpler; sometimes a sharper word preserves useful ambiguity. Hone toward the poem’s governing perception, while avoiding polish that erases strangeness or voice.
Also Known As
Sharpen Polish whetstone
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