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

Horror

Psychology
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

An intense, revulsive fear mixed with shock, dread, or disgust; in Gothic and psychological poetry, horror manifests as both existential dread and visceral recoil, often linked to the unknown or the abhuman.

Explore this topic in depth (1)

Gothic Poetry — Gothic poetry turns shadows, ruins, storms and supernatural suggestion into ways of exploring human fear, longing, guilt and uncertainty. More than a collection of frightening images, it is a flexible tradition concerned with what reason cannot comfortably explain.

Detailed Definition
Horror in poetry plunges into the grotesque, supernatural, or abject—gore, monsters, existential void. Poets use vivid, disturbing imagery and clamorous rhythm to evoke visceral reactions. It appears in Gothic ballads, war poetry, and surrealist works, confronting readers with the unspeakable. Horror tests the limits of representation, exploring trauma, evil, and the sublime, often leaving the reader unsettled and questioning the nature of humanity.
Example
Example in poetry:
Horror in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Conqueror Worm" shows angels watching human existence in horror; Cecilia Llompart's "Omens" uses horror tropes to speak on death and dreams; Robert Herrick's "The Hag" creates a terrifying portrait of a witch; "The Haunting" is a collection of feminist-horror poems; "Night--A Phantasy" uses Gothic imagery for an oppressive atmosphere; "Nightmare Jones" compiles terrifying verse about monsters and ghosts.
Additional Notes
Horror in poetry plunges into the grotesque, supernatural, or abject—gore, monsters, existential void—through vivid, disturbing imagery and clamorous rhythm. In teaching, distinguish horror from terror: horror is revulsive fear mixed with disgust, while terror is overwhelming fear. Horror appears in Gothic ballads, war poetry, and surrealist works, confronting readers with the unspeakable. It tests the limits of representation, exploring trauma, evil, and the sublime. Students should examine how poets use grotesque imagery, sensory overload, and Gothic conventions to create horror.
Also Known As
Fear terror dread revulsion panic nightmare
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