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.

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

Miniature grand narrative

Genre
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

A brief narrative poem that encapsulates epic scope—heroic struggle, mythic resonance, or historical sweep—within a highly condensed form.

Detailed Definition
A compressed narrative combining epic scope and ambition with manageable brevity, creating paradoxical effect of grandeur in miniature. This requires careful selection of essential heroic elements and concentrated expression, with compression intensifying rather than diminishing epic effect. The challenge lies in maintaining dignity and elevation characteristic of epic while working in brief compass typically associated with lyric rather than narrative poetry.
Example
Example in poetry:
Walt Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” is miniature grand narrative—personal moment linked to cosmic time; modern example: Tracy K. Smith’s “My God, It’s Full of Stars” compresses space travel and grief; miniature grand narrative scales universal themes into brief lyric; Ocean Vuong’s “Aubade with Burning City” merges Vietnam War and queer love; this form achieves epic resonance through compression; it’s common in contemporary lyric.
Additional Notes
Paradoxical concept combining epic scope with brief execution. Requires careful selection of essential elements. The compression should intensify rather than diminish the epic effect.
Also Known As
Compressed epic Brief grand tale Condensed heroic Miniature epos Epyllion fragment
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