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

Mechanism

Philosophy
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

Mechanism is the view that natural phenomena are explainable by mechanical laws, like a machine. It reduces complex processes to the interactions of parts.

Detailed Definition
Mechanism, opposed to vitalism, sees the universe as a deterministic machine. In poetry, it can appear as cold, industrial imagery or as a critique of dehumanization. Poets may lament the reduction of life to mere mechanics. Alternatively, they might explore the beauty of mechanical forms. This concept raises questions about free will and creativity, making poetry a site to assert human spirit against mechanistic explanation.
Example
Example in poetry:
A poem that depicts a human being as a machine, or a city as a mechanism, can be seen as a form of mechanism; The cold, precise language of a poem by Marianne Moore can be read as mechanistic in its formal control; A poem that describes the body as a machine, like some of the work of the Vorticists, is an example of a mechanistic worldview; The idea of a poem as a carefully constructed mechanism, like a sonnet, reflects a mechanistic approach to poetic form.
Additional Notes
Mechanism is the philosophical view that the universe and all its natural phenomena are best explained by mechanical laws and interactions, like a clockwork machine. It is a deterministic worldview that reduces complex processes (including life and mind) to the movements and collisions of matter. This view was dominant in the Enlightenment, standing in opposition to vitalism and organicism. In poetry, mechanism can appear as a theme of dehumanization, industrial imagery, or cold, rational language. Poets might lament the reduction of life to a machine. However, a poet might also explore the beauty of mechanical forms or adopt a precise, formal style. This concept raises questions about free will, creativity, and the meaning of life in a potentially deterministic universe.
Also Known As
Mechanistic philosophy Determinism Clockwork universe contraption
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