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 N

nature writing tradition

Movement
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 literary tradition of observing and describing the natural world in verse and prose

Detailed Definition
The literary heritage and established practices of writing about nature, encompassing poetry, essays, natural history, and other forms. This tradition includes pastoral poetry, Romantic nature verse, natural history writing, and contemporary eco-literature. Key figures span from classical poets through Wordsworth, Thoreau, John Muir, Mary Oliver, and contemporary nature writers. The tradition emphasizes direct observation, celebration of natural beauty, and exploration of human relationships with the natural world.
Example
Example in poetry:
nature writing tradition: Thoreau’s “Walden” pioneers introspective nature observation; Annie Dillard’s “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” blends scientific detail with metaphysical wonder; Aldo Leopold’s “A Sand County Almanac” introduces land ethics; Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” merges poetic prose with environmental advocacy; Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “Braiding Sweetgrass” weaves indigenous knowledge with botanical science; contemporary poets like Ada Limón continue this tradition in works like “The Hurting Kind,” where nature mediates human emotion.
Additional Notes
Literary tradition of writing about nature, encompassing poetry, essays, and other forms. Includes pastoral, Romantic nature poetry, natural history writing, and contemporary eco-literature. Key figures include Wordsworth, Thoreau, Mary Oliver, and many others.
Also Known As
nature literature tradition environmental writing history pastoral lineage eco-literary heritage Ecopoetry tradition
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