Game poems

[droqen]

So, Magnuson explains that these lenses are incomplete, but does say that he has also found them "helpful and relevant in thinking about my own work". Then goes into these features of poetry, specifically lyric poetry, which I infer he is claiming better "[capture] how I most often think about my games, or similar games by other creators"

Note that the list below is as minimal as possible, I have taken exact wording but excluded such qualifiers as 'generally' and 'often'. Understand that the following list has been so threshed. Lyric poems...

- are . . . short
- are . . . intimate and personal
- express or explore complex emotions
- explore meaning in the moments and in the loose ends of life that don't necessarily have a nice narrative arc
- attempt to slow the reader down, give pause, prompt reflection

. . . this list . . . provides an opening for considering [certain] games as artifacts that are not defined strictly (or primarily) by narrative, or by rhetoric, or by gameplay--or even by interaction or computation.

These are all formal, structural definitions and readings; I must say that the obvious direction that I see Magnuson not going in is defining these artifacts by the list that is given. The effect, the emotional intention, the shape of the creator's relationship to the work.

[droqen]

. . . poetry is . . . a mode of intervention that can exist in any medium.

I want to know more about this.

(An idea that we will explore in the second part of this book.)

Oh, excellent.