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

Rhizome

Philosophy
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

A rhizome is a non-hierarchical, decentralized network structure. It grows horizontally, with multiple entry points and connections, unlike a tree's root system.

Detailed Definition
Deleuze and Guattari's concept opposes arborescent (tree-like) thought. In poetry, it appears in non-linear forms, associative imagery, and open-ended structures. A rhizomatic poem resists a single central meaning, offering multiple pathways for interpretation. This approach encourages a nomadic, unpredictable reading experience, reflecting the complex interconnectedness of ideas and the world, celebrating multiplicity over unity.
Example
Example in poetry:
A poem that moves associatively from one image to another without a central theme, like much of Ashbery's work, is rhizomatic; A hypertext poem with non-linear paths is a literal example of a rhizome; A collection of poems that is not organized by a single theme but by a network of connections is rhizomatic; The "open field" of poetry, as advocated by Charles Olson, can be seen as a rhizomatic space.
Additional Notes
Rhizome is a botanical and philosophical concept developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari to describe a network structure that is non-hierarchical, decentralized, and without a central root. Unlike a tree, which has a single trunk and branches, a rhizome grows horizontally, with multiple entry points and connections, such as a ginger plant or a network of tubers. It is a model for a multiplicity that is not organized by a unified center. In poetry, a rhizome appears in non-linear forms, associative imagery, and open-ended structures. A poem that resists a single central meaning, offering multiple pathways for interpretation, is rhizomatic. This approach encourages a nomadic, unpredictable reading experience, reflecting the complex interconnectedness of ideas.
Also Known As
Rhizomatic structure Network Multiplicity vetiver
Skip to main content