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 P

playful poetry

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

Verse that emphasizes humor, wit, or lightheartedness rather than solemnity

Detailed Definition
Playful poetry is a mode that embraces humor, whimsy, linguistic experimentation, and lighthearted subversion of poetic conventions; it often features nonsense verse, puns, invented words, or absurd scenarios—exemplified by Edward Lear’s limericks, Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky,” or contemporary poets like Billy Collins—using delight and surprise to engage readers while subtly critiquing seriousness or expanding the boundaries of poetic expression.
Example
Example in poetry:
Edward Lear’s “The Owl and the Pussycat” uses absurdity and whimsy in playful poetry; Ogden Nash’s “The Cow” (“The cow is of the bovine ilk; / One end is moo, the other, milk”) exemplifies witty playful poetry; Billy Collins’ “Introduction to Poetry” invites readers to “walk inside the poem’s room” — a playful pedagogical approach; Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s “Octopus” uses humor and wonder in playful natural history; Ross Gay’s “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude” includes playful exuberance in lines about compost and fig trees; Natalie Diaz’s “Postcolonial Love Poem” blends sensuality and wordplay in contemporary playful poetry.
Additional Notes
Playful poetry uses wit, wordplay, or formal experimentation for delight. Contrast with solemn or didactic verse. Look for puns, neologisms, or metrical surprises; ideal for breaking creative blocks or engaging reluctant readers.
Also Known As
Whimsical poetry Comic verse Play verse Frivolitas
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