Summary

  • Poetry about video games is a compelling means to explore what the medium truly means to us.
  • It can help us find ourselves, or embrace community with games like Kingdom Hearts and Pokemon.
  • However, most of all, this exploration can assist in solidifying video games as a genuine art form.

In an old dictionary that belonged to my late Dad, I stumbled upon my favorite definition of poetry. It defined it as "the language of imagination expressed in verse". As a poet, I agree with this definition because I use poetry to reimagine not only myself, but also certain subjects and artistic works such as video games.

Whether video games can be considered art has been debated endlessly, but many critics have made a strong case for the artistic value of the medium in the past. One essay by Adrian Gimate-Welsh on the website Game Developer states that video games are art due to the fact that they use the artistic features of narrative, gameplay, level design, and visuals. But it is because these features and others have an emotional impact similar to movies or literature that video games can be considered art.

At first glance, video games and poetry seem like two different worlds, but the poetic form of ekphrastic poetry bridges them. An ekphrastic poem is any poem about a work of art, and so it is possible for poetry about video games to exist. Of course, I wasn't aware of this until I read my first video game poem in 2017, Daniel Garcia's "ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSE IN WHICH EVERYONE IN KINGDOM HEARTS HAS MANDATORY COURT ORDERED F***ING THERAPY."

"I wanna visit a world outside of this one, a world that doesn’t get torn apart, a world that isn’t swallowed by the darkness inside of people - Daniel Garcia

This poem on abandonment, longing, and the Kingdom Hearts series floored me. At that time, Kingdom Hearts, and by extension, its fans, were ridiculed by some who hadn't played the games or refused to acknowledge its particular kind of anime melodrama. To see this poem by someone else who was emotionally impacted by this series validated my own enjoyment of it. This is something that poetry is capable of far more than other artistic mediums.

Eventually, I wrote my first video game poem "RPG", which would be published in the QTPOC publication Color Bloq in 2018. I wrote this poem to pay homage to certain female video game characters while commenting on the polarizing nature of video game characters and avatars. It felt freeing to write it and have it published, but I also felt I had just gotten lucky to make it this far. Trauma from a 2015 poetry-related incident kept me from believing in my own artistic worth for a long time.

In late 2021, I discovered video game literary magazine Cartridge Lit while looking up social media accounts to follow on Twitter. I had given myself a fresh start on the platform and wanted to rediscover poetry all over again, so I began browsing their archives. Soon enough, I came across Andy Winter's "Three Pokémon Poems", finding myself especially moved by the first entry. Its interrogation of gender identity reminded me of my poem "RPG" and it made me want to learn to love writing poetry again.

After revisiting Daniel Garcia's aforementioned Kingdom Hearts piece, I decided to revise a Kingdom Hearts poem tentatively drafted years earlier. I eventually submitted the poem "Limit Break" to Fragments, a new section of Diego Arguello's indie gaming criticism website, Into The Spine.

"Wearing hope

and dreams

in golden armor,

I break

wipe tears

then fight fears.

My Keyblade

is a brilliant star

that slashes

moonlight."- excerpt from my poem "Limit Break"

Video game poetry allows a poet to express an imagination heightened by video games. Through poetry, video games are explored as something that can be a catalyst for meaning and change.

Gaming critic Phoenix Simms affirms this in her essay on Stephen Sexton's video game poetry by stating, "What Sexton has done is demonstrate how games are both physical technology that enable a postmodern experience of witnessing and making meaning." Video game poetry is a lyrical testament to video games and literature, video games, and I are better for it.

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