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 U

Underground Railroad

Black American
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 Underground Railroad refers to the clandestine networks assisting enslaved people escaping bondage, often symbolising courage, secrecy, movement, and liberation.

Detailed Definition
In African American poetry, the Underground Railroad functions both historically and symbolically, representing collective resistance, hidden solidarity, dangerous passage, and the pursuit of freedom. Poets may invoke coded journeys, guiding stars, safe houses, fugitivity, or spiritual endurance. The term helps interpret poetry where escape becomes literal history and enduring metaphor for liberation under oppressive systems.
Example
Example in poetry:
Harriet Tubman poems often exemplify Underground Railroad themes; A poem about hidden safe houses and coded journeys reflects the Underground Railroad; Verse invoking stars as guides to freedom demonstrates this term; A poem portraying secret communal resistance illustrates Underground Railroad imagery; Poetry using escape routes as liberation metaphor reflects this concept
Additional Notes
The Underground Railroad in poetry functions as both historical subject and rich symbolic system: secret passages, coded songs, the North Star, safe houses, conductors like Harriet Tubman, and the entire lexicon of clandestine movement toward freedom. Poets have returned to Underground Railroad imagery not only to honour the historical freedom seekers but to use the railroad as a metaphor for any covert resistance movement, any network of mutual care that sustains fugitives from oppression. Students should research the actual historical debates about the Underground Railroad — how organised it was, how many people it helped, the roles of free Black people in running it — alongside the poetic mythology. Related terms include fugitive voice, runaway narrative, abolitionist poetics, and community survival.
Also Known As
freedom network secret passage abolitionist pathway
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