I know very, very little about poetry. I know that I like Poe's The Raven , and Rime of the Ancient Mariner thanks to Iron Maiden. I'm pretty sure that to be a good poet you have to have been dead for a few years. I own books by dead poets and, by and large, enjoy them occasionally.
What follows is something that was a requirement for my creative writing course. I had to write forty lines of poem and a five hundred word commentary.
So I pulled on my favourite beret and black turtle-neck and gave it a shot. And here it is, Cat.
You could skip straight to the poems but please read the commentary first you can see what I was at least attempting. Let me know if you dig, you dig? Cool.
What follows is something that was a requirement for my creative writing course. I had to write forty lines of poem and a five hundred word commentary.
So I pulled on my favourite beret and black turtle-neck and gave it a shot. And here it is, Cat.
You could skip straight to the poems but please read the commentary first you can see what I was at least attempting. Let me know if you dig, you dig? Cool.
COMMENTARY
I have been a fan of video games since I was old enough to grasp the concept and I do my best to promote them as healthy a leisure pursuit as going to the cinema or watching television. There is no stigma attached to enjoying these things. The topic of film or TV can be talked about anywhere: during dinner, in an art gallery, in most cases a dwindling conversation would be considered refuelled by the introduction of these new themes. Video games, on the other hand, have a habit of stopping any conversation they infiltrate. Among certain company, one has to be careful how to broach the subject or possibly even not bring it up at all lest it be dismissed as a folly enjoyed only by children and people with nothing better to do. I think that a big reason for its absence from intelligent, adult conversation is the fact that it is so misunderstood.
I don’t mean ‘misunderstood’ in the way teenagers are considered misunderstood. I mean in the way Mandarin is misunderstood. Foreign. Abbreviations like FPS, MMORPG and RTS, acronyms like Hud and a bevy of phrases and terms (shoot ‘em up, beat ‘em up) not only serve to confuse an outsider but some, by the nature of what they are describing, sound downright hostile.
So, with video games being one of my passions, I had decided on a subject for my poems. And, so as not to alienate my audience, I decided the theme should be to take common video game parlance and try to turn it into something a little more accessible and friendly. It is a bit much to try to explain or define these terms in justifiable detail within the confines of a poem (a bit much for me anyway), so instead I opted to take a couple of video games most threatening constants (the beat ‘em up, and the amusement arcade) and strip them down to the core elements of what makes them what they are and why game players enjoy them, while also adding an element of the fantastic to keep them mysterious but not threateningly so.
Choosing the style of my poems was difficult because even having read up on the variety of poetry methods I still could not decide which would suit my subject matter best. I knew that I didn’t want to be immersed in a rhyming dictionary so I decided to forego cadence and just let the lines end when they felt they should. It was more important for me to get my ideas down quickly and not interrupt the flow. Just as important was resisting the temptation to return to the poems with a view to tweaking them too much.
Fingers dance.
The Avatar,
Wireless, helpless puppet,
Mimics and shadows
The puppet masters’ intent.
In deadly reply
To physical repartee
Fingertips tap-dance
1, 2, 3.
Foe to foe.
Toe-to-toe.
A fatal blow,
The killing combo.
THE ARCADE
Stand on the threshold.
Inside are the champions.
The most agile athletes, the sharpest shooters.
It’s pole position or nothing
For the bowed ones bathed in light.
Feet planted like statues
Erected for high scores achieved,
For lap times,
For the fastest knock-out.
They are the static gladiators
In this 21st century coliseum.
THE ARCADE 2
The cabinet begged
So The Player charitably approached.
He offered his tokens for a wish.
Like throwing coins in a fountain.
They land with purpose,
A satisfying mechanical splash.
The cabinet sings its gratitude and opens its arms.
The Player is bathed in the light from another world.
He takes control
And with it, power.
This exciting future will last
Only as long as his funds.
The Player stands like a statue
While his rented identity
Bought for a few charms
Saves the day.
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