Level Up Your Poetry, Part 7: An Editor’s Point of View

Level Up Your Poetry, Part 7: An Editor’s Point of View

by | Apr 28, 2025 | Poetry

Have you ever steered your game avatar through a digital environment and stumbled upon a behind-the-scenes section? You know, one where you can see the back of the polygons and glimpse how the pieces start to fit together? As a writer, I liken that to learning from an editor about their process, how they select and assemble multiple pieces, aiming for a seamless reading experience. (more…)

Level Up Your Poetry, Part 7: An Editor’s Point of View

Level Up Your Poetry, Part 6: Advice from Other Poets

by | Apr 14, 2025 | Poetry

Throughout this series of essays, I’ve shared my own viewpoint. It’s time now to hear from others who have tackled the exciting combination of games and poetry—namely, the contributors of an entire anthology of it. Manawaker Studio recently published Dangerous to Go Alone! 2, their second volume of gamer poetry, which includes a reprint of one of my Sidequest poems. I couldn’t resist the chance to ask the other authors one deceptively simple question: “What advice would you give poets who want to use games as inspiration?” I challenged them to answer in only a couple sentences. (more…)

Level Up Your Poetry, Part 7: An Editor’s Point of View

Level Up Your Poetry, Part 5: When Words Take Iconic Shape

by | Sep 16, 2024 | Essays, Poetry

From power-up mushrooms to Pac-Man, video games include a host of iconic shapes. These familiar silhouettes may hearken back to the early days of pixelated designs, when your game character may have taken form as little more than a boxy blob. Or, as in newer games, they may embody more svelte polygons. Either way, poets who find inspiration in gaming can write concrete poetry to have their words to take literal shape on the page. (more…)

Game Enjambment: Ghosted by Pac-Man

Game Enjambment: Ghosted by Pac-Man

by | Jul 15, 2024 | Poetry, Video Games

Game Enjambment is a reoccurring poetry series on games and gaming.

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Game Enjambment: Super Emeralds

Game Enjambment: Super Emeralds

by | Jun 17, 2024 | Poetry, Video Games

Game Enjambment is a reoccurring poetry series on games and gaming.

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Level Up Your Poetry, Part 7: An Editor’s Point of View

Level Up Your Poetry, Part 4: Games, Prose Poems, and Liminality

by | Aug 24, 2023 | Features, Poetry, Video Games

Video games occupy a liminal space, a threshold between digital and physical worlds. Our choices and actions in one directly influence the other. Video games conform to their own sets of rules, which may or may not mimic the laws of physics, morality, etc. In this sense, they share quite a bit in common with prose poems. (more…)