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

Postwar Poetry Movement

Historical And Literary Periods
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 poetry produced immediately following World War II, addressing war trauma, nuclear anxiety, and emerging Cold War tensions. Produced foundational postmodern and contemporary poetry.

Detailed Definition
The Postwar Poetry Movement addressed nuclear anxiety and war trauma through innovative form. Poets grappled with unprecedented destruction and new world order. This movement appears in poetry through expressions of war trauma and devastation, nuclear anxiety and atomic imagery, Cold War tensions and surveillance, exploration of historical consciousness, and establishment of postwar poetry as crucial to understanding contemporary poetry's engagement with violence and catastrophe.
Example
Example in poetry:
A poem (often from the US or UK after 1945) that is characterized by sobriety, modesty of ambition, and a rejection of the high rhetorical style of early Modernism, defining the Postwar Poetry Movement; A work that focuses on domestic life, suburban experience, and a quiet sense of anxiety or conformity; A poem employing a precise, understated, and often anti-poetic diction; A lyrical piece that addresses the legacy of the war and the fear of the atomic future with a subdued tone.
Additional Notes
The Postwar Poetry Movement (1945–1960s) responded to trauma and reconstruction. Poets like Larkin and Lowell combined realism, irony, and introspection to address disillusionment and social change.
Also Known As
Postwar Poetry Post-World War II Poetry
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