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

penury

Archaic Terms
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

Extreme poverty, destitution, or dire need; utter lack of resources or means; also means severe scarcity or insufficiency of something essential, conveying desperate want.

Detailed Definition
“Penury” conveys not just poverty but utter deprivation, often moral or spiritual as well as material. It appears in satirical, devotional, and social poetry to critique inequality or explore humility. Its Latinate gravity suits elevated diction, and its starkness contrasts with images of abundance. Though still used, its archaic weight in verse emphasizes the depth of human need or the stripping away of worldly illusion in philosophical reflection.
Example
Example in poetry:
The widow lived in great penury (poverty, destitution); Years of penury had marked his face (extreme poverty); Penury drove him to beg for bread (want, indigence); From penury to riches rose the merchant's son (poverty, need); In their penury they shared what little they had (destitution, lack); Penury and hunger stalked the land (dire poverty, privation)
Additional Notes
Penury denotes extreme, grinding poverty—destitution beyond mere lack of luxury. The term emphasizes deprivation's severity and suffering. Shakespeare uses penury for abject poverty: "in their penury." Students should distinguish penury (extreme poverty) from "poverty" (lack of wealth, varying degrees). Penury can also mean scarcity or insufficiency of non-monetary things: "penury of time," "penury of ideas." In medieval and Renaissance contexts, penury often appears in religious contexts—vows of poverty, spiritual penury versus wealth. The term derives from Latin penuria (want, need). In poetry, penury emphasizes pathos and moral commentary on economic injustice. Compare "indigence" (formal poverty), "destitution" (complete deprivation), and "penury" (emphasizes suffering and meanness of poverty). Understanding penury's intensity helps assess social commentary in literary texts.
Also Known As
penurie poverty want
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