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.

After the death of my mother, 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.

My wife and I are simplifying our days. The server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit the quieter life we want.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the 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.

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 I

Insult poetry

Genre
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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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 form of verse centered on verbal attacks, mockery, or invective

Detailed Definition
Insult poetry is a subgenre that uses wit, sarcasm, and rhetorical aggression to denounce or ridicule a target, often blending humor with moral outrage; rooted in traditions like flyting or invective, it transforms personal or political grievance into artful verbal combat, leveraging rhythm, rhyme, and hyperbole to maximize rhetorical impact.
Example
Example in poetry:
The Icelandic “níð” verses curse enemies with grotesque imagery; Shakespeare’s “King Lear” features insult poetry in the Fool’s jibes; Juvenal’s satires mock Roman decadence with vitriolic language; Amiri Baraka’s “Black Art” uses insult as political weapon: “We want poems that kill.”
Additional Notes
Insult poetry uses verbal aggression for artistic or political effect; ranges from playful (flyting) to vitriolic; differs from abusive verse by often targeting public figures or systems rather than individuals; common in hip-hop and oral traditions.
Also Known As
Flyting verse Cursing lyric Aggressive poetry Verbal assault poetry Invective poetic insult contest
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