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.

After the death of my mother, 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.

My wife and I are simplifying our days. The server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit the quieter life we want.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the 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.

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

Sumerian Literary Era

Historical And Literary Periods
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 earliest major period of written literature in Mesopotamia, marked by Sumerian hymns, myths, laments, and praise poems.

Detailed Definition
Sumerian literary culture flourished in city states such as Uruk, Ur, and Lagash, where scribes preserved compositions on clay tablets. Poems about Inanna, Dumuzi, Enki, kingship, city destruction, and the underworld combine ritual performance with political and theological thought. Their patterned repetition, dialogue, catalogues, and parallel lines influenced later Mesopotamian traditions and demonstrate how early writing served both temple and court.
Example
Example in poetry:
Sumerian Literary Era poetry includes the lament for the destruction of Ur, which expresses communal grief; The Epic of Gilgamesh uses elevated verse to explore friendship, loss, and mortality; Hymns to Inanna praise the goddess through repetition and powerful imagery; The Descent of Inanna combines mythic narrative with ritual language about death and renewal
Additional Notes
The Sumerian Literary Era produced some of the earliest known written poems, recorded in cuneiform on clay tablets in Mesopotamia. Its genres include temple hymns, city laments, myths about deities, royal praise poems, and stories about Gilgamesh. Students should remember that these works were closely connected to performance, scribal education, religious ritual, and political authority; repeated phrases and formulaic language helped preserve them in oral and written traditions.
Also Known As
Sumerian Literature Sumerian Literary Period
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