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 V

Visual cadence

Sound
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

Perceived rhythm based on line breaks and typography rather than sound

Detailed Definition
Visual cadence refers to the rhythmic effect created by the spatial arrangement of words on the page—line breaks, indentation, spacing, and typography—that guides the reader’s eye and pace, independent of or in addition to sonic meter. In concrete poetry, visual cadence may mimic the motion it describes (e.g., falling words for rain); in free verse, it can signal pauses, emphasis, or emotional shifts. Poets like E.E. Cummings and contemporary visual poets exploit visual cadence to make reading a kinetic experience. For students, this concept expands prosody beyond sound to include the visual dimension of poetry, revealing how layout functions as a compositional tool that shapes interpretation and temporal flow.
Example
Example in poetry:
E.E. Cummings’ “l(a / le / af / fa / ll / s) / one / l / iness” uses spacing to mimic a falling leaf’s cadence; Visual line breaks in “The Red Wheelbarrow” slow reading to match contemplative pace; Ocean Vuong’s staggered indents create breath-like rhythm on the page
Additional Notes
Visual pacing created through typography, spacing, or layout. Related to Visual enjambment. Contrasts with purely sonic cadence. Study concrete poetry for effective examples.
Also Known As
Visual rhythm Spatial tempo Line cadence Typographic flow Visual meter
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