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 I

Intertext

Technique
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 interwoven references to other texts within a poem, creating dialogue across literary traditions.

Detailed Definition
Intertextuality, per Kristeva, embeds allusions that enrich or subvert originals; it appears in poetry from Dante's allusions to Joyce's parodies to foster depth, trace influences, and build cultural memory, essential for sophisticated, allusive verse.
Example
Example in poetry:
Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" contains intertextual references to Dante, Shakespeare, and Andrew Marvell; Julia Kristeva's theory of intertextuality holds that all texts reference and transform previous texts; Ezra Pound's Cantos create meaning through vast web of intertextual allusions to multiple cultures; A contemporary poet might respond intertextually to canonical work by rewriting from marginalized perspective; Rita Dove's "Persephone in Hell" engages intertextually with classical myth; Understanding intertextuality reveals how poems participate in ongoing literary conversations across time
Additional Notes
Intertext refers to the complex web of references, allusions, echoes, and dialogues with other texts woven throughout a poem, demonstrating that no text exists in isolation but participates in ongoing literary conversation. Julia Kristeva's concept emphasizes how meaning arises through relationships among texts rather than from isolated works. Poets employ intertextuality through explicit quotation, allusion, parody, pastiche, or subtle echo. T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" and Ezra Pound's "Cantos" are densely intertextual, requiring readers to recognize references to create meaning. Intertextuality differs from simple allusion by emphasizing the transformative dialogue between texts—the intertext isn't merely ornamental but constitutive of meaning. Understanding intertextuality helps students recognize how poems participate in traditions, revise predecessors, and create meaning through relationships. Contemporary poets use intertextuality to explore cultural memory, question originality, and create palimpsestic layers. Students should track how intertexts function: do they authorize, subvert, complicate, or expand the primary text? Recognizing intertextuality transforms reading from seeking authorial intention to tracing networks of signification across literary history.
Also Known As
Intertextuality
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