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

Vulnerability

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

An openness to being affected, injured, changed, or obligated by others and by the world.

Detailed Definition
In poetry, vulnerability is not simply weakness or confession. It names the condition through which sensation, dependence, grief, and ethical responsibility become possible. A vulnerable speaker may expose uncertainty while recognizing that bodies and voices are unequally protected. Poetic form can enact this openness through porous boundaries, direct address, interrupted control, and receptive silence. The result is not necessarily intimacy, but a heightened awareness that existence is shared and therefore liable to harm and transformation.
Example
Example in poetry:
A poem about vulnerability emphasizes exposure to injury, dependence, love, or loss rather than treating the self as invulnerable; A speaker who admits fear before asking for help makes vulnerability a source of ethical connection; A lyric about illness can show how the body depends on caregivers, institutions, and fragile routines; Vulnerability may also describe the openness required for wonder, since the speaker must be affected by another person or by the world
Additional Notes
Vulnerability is an openness to injury, dependence, influence, and transformation. It is not simply weakness; many philosophical accounts treat vulnerability as a basic condition of embodied and relational life, capable of grounding care, responsibility, and solidarity. In poetry, exposed speakers, fragile bodies, grief, desire, and receptivity can express vulnerability. Consider whether the poem presents openness as imposed, chosen, exploited, shared, or politically significant.
Other Meanings of “Vulnerability”
Also Known As
Susceptibility Fragility
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