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

Praeteritio

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

The rhetorical device of drawing attention to something by claiming to omit it

Detailed Definition
Praeteritio (also known as paralipsis) is a rhetorical strategy in which a speaker claims to omit or pass over a subject while actually drawing attention to it, often using phrases like “I won’t mention…” or “It’s not my place to say…,” thereby emphasizing the very point ostensibly being set aside; in poetry, this device creates dramatic irony or understated critique—such as a love poem that “skips over” the beloved’s betrayal—allowing the poet to imply sensitive or controversial content indirectly, leveraging the reader’s inference to heighten emotional impact or subvert censorship through strategic feigned reticence.
Example
Example in poetry:
Praeteritio: "I won’t mention his betrayal—no, not that"; "Let’s not discuss her lies (or the tears they caused)"; "I pass over his cowardice in silence"; "His greed? I say nothing—though all know"
Additional Notes
Introducing a topic by claiming not to mention it (e.g., "I won't discuss his scandals"). Creates ironic emphasis. Also called paralipsis. Related to rhetorical irony.
Also Known As
Omission rhetoric Denial-while-stating Passing-over figure Paralipsis Apophasis
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