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

Prologue

Technique
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

An introductory poem or section that previews themes, characters, or sets the stage before the main work.

Detailed Definition
Prologues, as in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, introduce motifs and tone; they appear to engage audiences, justify the work, or frame expectations, essential for epic or dramatic poetry to build narrative authority.
Example
Example in poetry:
Chaucer's General Prologue to Canterbury Tales introduces pilgrims before they tell individual stories; Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet prologue summarizes tragic outcome before action begins; Wordsworth's prologue to "The Excursion" explains philosophical framework for longer work; A prologue might establish narrative voice, historical context, or thematic concerns; Prologues can acknowledge artifice and address readers about compositional process; Contemporary poets use prologues to frame works as provisional, constructed, or multiple in meaning
Additional Notes
The prologue serves as an introductory poem or section that establishes context, previews themes, introduces characters or situations, and creates a threshold between the world outside the text and the world within. Unlike exordia (which primarily capture attention), prologues provide substantive orientation. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales uses the General Prologue to introduce pilgrims and frame the tale-telling contest. Shakespeare's prologues both provide plot information and establish theatrical conventions (Romeo and Juliet's prologue reveals the ending while soliciting audience patience). The technique allows poets to guide reader expectations, establish tone and register, and provide information that main narratives cannot easily convey. Prologues can be in a different voice or mode than the main text—a prose prologue before verse narrative, an authorial voice before dramatic monologues. Contemporary poets use prologues variously: some follow tradition by establishing context, others create ironic distance by promising one thing and delivering another. Students should examine what prologues accomplish that poems proper cannot, and how they shape subsequent reading. Understanding prologues reveals how poems announce themselves and negotiate entry into imaginative worlds.
Also Known As
Preamble Preface Introduction Proem Plot introduction
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