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 P

Paralipsis line

Device
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 line that claims to omit a subject while actually drawing attention to it through striking omission or understatement.

Detailed Definition
A paralipsis line is a rhetorical device in poetry where the speaker claims to omit or pass over something while simultaneously drawing attention to it, often through phrases like “I won’t mention…” or “Needless to say…”; this technique creates ironic emphasis, allowing the poet to imply controversial, taboo, or emotionally charged content indirectly, thereby engaging the reader’s inference while maintaining a veneer of restraint or decorum, and is frequently employed in satirical, confessional, or politically subversive verse to critique power structures or personal failings without overt accusation.
Example
Example in poetry:
Paralipsis line: Shakespeare’s “I must be cruel only to be kind” in “Hamlet” admits necessary harshness; Emily Dickinson’s “I cannot live with You” uses “It would be Life— / Without the Date—” to imply impossibility; contemporary poet Claudia Rankine writes “What did you say?” to highlight unspoken racism; paralipsis (saying by not saying) reveals truth through feigned omission; it often appears in dramatic monologue or social critique.
Additional Notes
Line employing paralipsis (mentioning by claiming not to mention). "I won't discuss their crimes..." Creates ironic emphasis. Related to apophasis. Effective for satire or rhetorical positioning.
Also Known As
Omission line Preterition verse Saying-by-not-saying line Denial-mention verse Praeteritio line
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