People wear many hats in life, and noted game developer Raph Koster has donned another one that most folks aren’t used to seeing him wear: published poet. For the last 10 years, Koster has posted a poem on his personal blog every Sunday. Now, he’s compiled a number of those — and added a few others — into a book you can hold in your hand (and peruse while spawn camping!). The subject of the poetry extends far beyond the realm of gaming, covering whatever was happening during that week, from the news to music to even his children’s homework. Of his musings, he said,
As I wrote, I found myself bending the writing to suit the audience: rather than confessional or deeply personal work, I tended towards light verse, towards musings on history or science, or even on programming and video games. And of course, the sort of subject matter that still carries echoes of the world of geeks: ghost stories, real world mysteries, mythology and magic.
More than just poetry, the book contains a series of digital pen-and-ink illustrations Koster made based on various photographs he’d taken as well as cameo appearances of blog commenters in the extensive end notes. Titled Sunday Poems, this compilation is available now in paperback and is available for pre-order on Kindle. Not a fan of poetry? Keep your eyes peeled: Koster blogged that this book was written “in preparation for hopefully putting out a few books of game design essays, the first of which [he hopes] to be a collection of [his] postmortem pieces on Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, and other games.”
