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 L

Level playing field

Idiomatic Phrase
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

Level playing field denotes fair, equal conditions for all participants; in social or political poetry, it critiques inequality or advocates for justice, highlighting disparities in opportunity, power, or access.

Detailed Definition
Level playing field means a fair situation in which no person or group has an unfair advantage. In poetry, the idiom can frame questions of justice, class, education, gender, race, inheritance, and opportunity. Its sporting image makes inequality spatial: some players begin on tilted ground while others stand secure. A poet may use it in social critique, satire, or protest to expose hidden privilege. It is also useful for contrasting ideals of fairness with the uneven terrain of lived experience.
Example
Example in poetry:
A social justice poem might demand a level playing field for children born on opposite sides of town; In sports imagery, a level playing field symbolises fairness before the contest begins; The phrase means equal conditions or opportunities; A poet can use it to criticise privilege and imbalance.
Additional Notes
A level playing field means fair and equal conditions for competition. The sports metaphor is widely used in politics, education, economics, and social justice. In poetry, it can critique privilege, class, gender, race, or inherited advantage. Students should notice the spatial logic: if the field slopes, effort alone cannot produce fairness. It pairs naturally with games, races, schoolyards, ladders, and uneven ground.
Also Known As
fair competition
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