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 S

strained imagery

Imagery
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

Visual or sensory imagery that is overextended or illogical, losing coherence or credibility by pushing metaphor or description beyond plausible or evocative limits.

Detailed Definition
Strained imagery occurs when a poet forces metaphorical or descriptive language beyond its natural associative limits, resulting in comparisons that feel unnatural, overly complex, or conceptually dissonant; while sometimes used deliberately for shock or surreal effect (as in certain metaphysical or avant-garde poetry), strained imagery risks alienating readers if it undermines coherence or emotional authenticity without sufficient poetic justification.
Example
Example in poetry:
Strained imagery pushes description beyond plausibility or coherence: “The moon wept liquid obsidian tears that crystallized into sonnets” (overloaded sensory clash); “Her laughter smelled like burnt algebra and cinnamon ghosts” (illogical synesthesia); “The silence screamed in neon hieroglyphs across the sky” (conflicting sensory modes); “Time dripped from the clock like molten origami” (conceptually unstable image).
Additional Notes
Strained imagery is descriptive language that is exaggerated, artificial, or overly ornate, failing to evoke a clear or authentic image, and thus detracting from the poem's intended effect; related to purple prose.
Also Known As
Overstrained imagery labored image strained poetic picture Catachresis verse
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