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 R

racket

Games
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

Racket is the strung implement used to strike the ball or shuttlecock in games such as tennis or badminton.

Detailed Definition
Racket appears in poetry as a taut emblem of the strung face and the instrument of the volley. In modern verse it symbolizes the tool of the exchange. Poets draw on the racket to illustrate themes of the tensioned strings, the centered hit, and the cultural implement that has linked the hand to the poetry of the court and the continuous return.
Example
Example in poetry:
The racket’s strung face and swinging arc supply poets with images of elastic and precise contact; Verse of tennis or badminton lets the implement speak the intention of the player; “The racket met the ball and the air accepted the new direction” demonstrates redirected force; Educational poetry shows the tool as the modern descendant of the battledore; Poets keep the racket when the stroke must be both powerful and controlled.
Additional Notes
The racket’s strung face and swinging arc become the instrument of elastic and precise contact in tennis or badminton. Poets exploit both the racket’s extension of the arm and its capacity for the most delicate or the most powerful stroke. Classroom discussion can usefully contrast the racket with the older battledore. Related implements include the general language of the strung frame. The image rewards attention to the difference between the flat face and the ball or shuttle that meets it.
Also Known As
racquet bat battledore
Skip to main content