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 M

Matsuo Basho

Historical Figure
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

Japanese haiku master whose compressed poems reveal depth, humour, travel, and the transience of ordinary things.

Detailed Definition
Matsuo Basho transformed haiku into a vehicle of spiritual and aesthetic insight. His frogs, journeys, grasses, and weathered roads show how a momentary perception can open into vastness. In poetry, his name suggests brevity, exactness, wabi-sabi simplicity, and the art of finding eternity in a passing sound, a seasonal image, or a humble scene.
Example
Example in poetry:
A poet might use Matsuo Basho to suggest brevity, travel, and attention to ordinary things; The frog and old pond associated with Basho show how a small moment can open vast stillness; A poem might invoke Basho when a single image carries emotional depth; His name may signal haiku, roads, rain, autumn fields, and disciplined simplicity
Additional Notes
Matsuo Basho is a key figure for understanding haiku as more than brevity. His poems often combine plain observation with seasonal awareness, humour, travel, loneliness, and sudden depth. In poetry, his name may suggest the old pond, the narrow road, the traveller’s hut, or the Zen-like intensity of ordinary things. Students should avoid treating haiku as mere syllable counting.
Also Known As
Bashō Basho Matsuo Kinsaku Matsuo Munefusa
Skip to main content