The Rainbow Road Not Taken - (Spoken Word Poetry) The Poet Beanz

I make no apologies for interpolating Ellen Glasgow’s ‘The Freeman’ (1902), William Wordsworth’s ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’ (1807) and The Beatles ‘In my life’ (1965) all within a poem about the emotional resonance of characters and worlds created within computer games.

While John Lennon was clearly thinking of lost friends like Stuart Sutcliffe and Wordsworth was musing on the ability of nature to inspire humanity, I am inspired by the ability of stories about humanity (even within non-human protagonists) inside video game worlds to elicit as much, if not more visceral and emotional responses as great cinema or literature can. There are now friends I am sad to say, that I have spent many joyous hours with, sat around a console, for whom it has now been game over for many years.

Like Glasgow’s hero, Half-Life’s Gordon Freeman, Mafia 3’s Lincoln Clay and Mario himself, are all towering examples of people unwilling to accept bondage and limitations, or to know their place, confronting their oppressors and determined to bring justice to bear.

In Robert Frosts 1916 ‘The Road not taken’ a fairytale decision is mused upon with about as much solemnity as that felt by people of my age when playing an Ian Livingstone ‘Choose your own adventure’ book. Frost himself said “I am never more serious than when I am joking”

Some people think games are simply about a digital characters life and death. I can assure you it is much more important than that.