Game Mechanics in Poetry
About the Workshop:
In this craft session, we’ll explore how video games and other visual media can serve as generative frameworks for writing poetry and rethinking the written word.
What can a roguelike’s looping structure—like the endless escape attempts in Hades—teach us about poetic form, iteration, and the meaning that emerges through repetition? How does a game’s interface guide (or restrict) player experience—and how might that inform how a poem moves across the page? We’ll examine how these mechanics challenge assumptions about what a poem is, and what it can do.
This session will include a craft talk, generative writing opportunities, and group discussion.
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About the Workshop Leader:
DeeSoul Carson is a poet and educator from San Diego, CA, currently residing in Brooklyn, NY. His work is featured in Muzzle Magazine, AGNI, The Offing, & elsewhere. His chapbook, Running From Streetlights (2020), is a meditation on Blackness in America during the “Summer of Racial Reckoning.” A Stanford University alum, DeeSoul has received fellowships from the NYU MFA program, the Watering Hole, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
DeeSoul’s poetry is interested in the interrogation of laughter and joy as it pertains to Black existence, asking what keeps Black people laughing despite their struggles, who’s laughing with them, and who’s not quite in on the joke.
His debut full-length, The Laughing Barrel, is forthcoming from Alice James Books in Spring 2027.
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Time and Place:
June 26th (Thursday), 7:00-8:30PM ET
This workshop will be online (link will be sent to the email you provide).
About the Workshop:
In this craft session, we’ll explore how video games and other visual media can serve as generative frameworks for writing poetry and rethinking the written word.
What can a roguelike’s looping structure—like the endless escape attempts in Hades—teach us about poetic form, iteration, and the meaning that emerges through repetition? How does a game’s interface guide (or restrict) player experience—and how might that inform how a poem moves across the page? We’ll examine how these mechanics challenge assumptions about what a poem is, and what it can do.
This session will include a craft talk, generative writing opportunities, and group discussion.
—
About the Workshop Leader:
DeeSoul Carson is a poet and educator from San Diego, CA, currently residing in Brooklyn, NY. His work is featured in Muzzle Magazine, AGNI, The Offing, & elsewhere. His chapbook, Running From Streetlights (2020), is a meditation on Blackness in America during the “Summer of Racial Reckoning.” A Stanford University alum, DeeSoul has received fellowships from the NYU MFA program, the Watering Hole, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
DeeSoul’s poetry is interested in the interrogation of laughter and joy as it pertains to Black existence, asking what keeps Black people laughing despite their struggles, who’s laughing with them, and who’s not quite in on the joke.
His debut full-length, The Laughing Barrel, is forthcoming from Alice James Books in Spring 2027.
—
Time and Place:
June 26th (Thursday), 7:00-8:30PM ET
This workshop will be online (link will be sent to the email you provide).
About the Workshop:
In this craft session, we’ll explore how video games and other visual media can serve as generative frameworks for writing poetry and rethinking the written word.
What can a roguelike’s looping structure—like the endless escape attempts in Hades—teach us about poetic form, iteration, and the meaning that emerges through repetition? How does a game’s interface guide (or restrict) player experience—and how might that inform how a poem moves across the page? We’ll examine how these mechanics challenge assumptions about what a poem is, and what it can do.
This session will include a craft talk, generative writing opportunities, and group discussion.
—
About the Workshop Leader:
DeeSoul Carson is a poet and educator from San Diego, CA, currently residing in Brooklyn, NY. His work is featured in Muzzle Magazine, AGNI, The Offing, & elsewhere. His chapbook, Running From Streetlights (2020), is a meditation on Blackness in America during the “Summer of Racial Reckoning.” A Stanford University alum, DeeSoul has received fellowships from the NYU MFA program, the Watering Hole, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
DeeSoul’s poetry is interested in the interrogation of laughter and joy as it pertains to Black existence, asking what keeps Black people laughing despite their struggles, who’s laughing with them, and who’s not quite in on the joke.
His debut full-length, The Laughing Barrel, is forthcoming from Alice James Books in Spring 2027.
—
Time and Place:
June 26th (Thursday), 7:00-8:30PM ET
This workshop will be online (link will be sent to the email you provide).