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Poemancer is a card game for writing inspired poetry.
Poemancer is a game that helps poets write inspired poetry. The game includes card decks that help inspire and instruct you through the poetry process, plus a guide through the basics of good poetry writing. These cards can be used in countless ways to prompt poems, and they’re designed to be used again and again and again.
Please meet our team:
Poems are more than just line breaks and similes: they are journeys through the mind, they are spells we cast to understand the world. Poemancer is a game for writing inspired poetry.
We present a structured combination of prompts, artwork, and guides that explain both poetry forms and the creative process. Whether you’re a seasoned poet or poetry-curious, Poemancer helps you take the next step in your poetry journey.
Poemancer includes 200 cards that can be reconfigured in countless way. In this game, you will find three decks that can help you on different ways to write your poem.
The Navigation deck guides poets through different forms of poetry. It is divided into two subdecks:
The constellation cards offer guidance through the craft of traditional poetry forms, including highly architected forms like sonnets, villanelles, and contrapuntals, as well as more fluid forms like prose poems and free verse. Our booklet offers additional insights on writing with rhyme and meter (neither of which you need, by the way!)
The asterism cards are more process-oriented: they offer experimental ways for generating poetry, some of which include making use of dice, spam emails, song lyrics, and other kinds of media.
We also indicate on these cards how difficult we anticipate different forms to be for poets to write with. But, take these difficulty levels as suggestions. Some poets find iambic pentameter to be a breeze, but hate writing in free verse—and vice versa.
Essentially, no matter what kind of poetry you write, these cards offer both new and traditional doorways into writing successful poems.
The second deck in our game is the Inspiration deck. In this deck, you will find a set of cards with a concept and a famous painting on one side, and related prompts on the other.
These cards can be mixed and matched in nearly countless ways. Maybe one card speaks to you. Maybe you pick three cards and try to incorporate all of them into one poem. Maybe you pick 5.
Maybe you pick a card upside down, so you write the opposite of that card’s concept. Maybe you focus on the artwork instead of the concept, or only use the prompts on the other side.
Basically, follow wherever the spirit leads you, and write what you need to write.
Finally, the third deck is the Transformation deck. On one side of a Transformation card, you will find a principle of successful poetry. On the other side is a poem that enacts or embodies that concept.
Your poem does not need to meet all 40 principles to be “successful.” In fact, many successful poems break the rules. But these cards offer new ways of thinking about the goals you have with your poetry, so you can use them to revise your first drafts, or even try to write first drafts with these principles in mind.
Check the following video showing the components of the game.
With Poemancer, the process is the poem. How you use the cards is integral to the poetry you write, and the more you experiment with these cards, the more doorways into poetry you will find.
That said, games have rules, and poetry does, too. Our goal is to offer you structured approaches into poetry writing, while also empowering you to use the cards in ways that you see fit.
Here’s an approach to Poemancer that works for most poets:
1. Pull 1 Navigation card and 3 Inspiration cards.
We encourage you to pick these cards at random. The Inspiration cards, for example, are meant to provoke new and unexpected ideas that might be waiting inside of you. However, feel free to pull a Navigation card that doesn’t intimidate you. If you pull, for example, the Terza Rima card, but think the form will be too difficult for you, feel free to pull a card that feels more within your power.
2. Meditate or freewrite on your Inspiration Cards.
How do these cards land for you? Do you see similarities between their art, prompts, or ideas? Can you create a narrative sequence for them? Do they activate any memory of your life or worldview?
You can do this with line and stanza breaks, or you can just freewrite your thoughts in prose, and sculpt that text into a poetry form later.
Don’t spend more than 10 minutes freewriting.
3. Start drafting your poem.
Take your thoughts and freewrite and sculpt them into a first draft. Use the rules of the Navigation card to guide your line breaks, stanza breaks, and other formal elements.
Every poem demands its own time and process. We recommend you set a timer for 25 minutes. If you’re not done at the end of 25 minutes, that’s perfectly normal—take a 5 minute break, write for another 25 minutes, and be gentle with your focus and attention.
4. Let it sit
Did you write a first draft? Congratulations!
Let your poem and mind rest. Try to return to it with fresh eyes. Sometimes this means a 1-hour break, sometimes it’s much longer.
5. Tranformation
When you feel you can review your draft, reread it, and ask yourself what you want your poem to accomplish.
Then, read through some of the cards in the Transformation deck. Which cards feel relevant to what you want to accomplish in your own poem? Use the concepts and poems to help inform your revision—and also use them to validate what your poem is also doing successfully.
Revise for as long as you need to, stopping as your energy requires it. Above all, enjoy the process and the play!
Check out this video explaining this procedure:
We have explored ways in which you can play with Poemancer by adapting the rules of existing games. Because of this, we like to call Poemancer a “game parasite”—or, maybe it’s like Kirby swallowing whole another game and turning into it.
Check some of our ideas for parasitizing games in the following video!
Our play-testers had a blast playing with Poemancer! Check out here some of their experiences with earlier versions of the game as it developed.
Supporting Our Poets
We are excited to publish living poets in the Transformation Deck, whose work we believe embodies exemplary contemporary poetry. We also believe in paying artists for their work: your support of our Kickstarter ensures we can pay all of the poets we are publishing for their poetry.
Poets we are publishing in our Transformation Deck include:
- Reuben Gelley Newman
- Talia BarNoy
- Ryan Koch
- Aimee Lowenstern
- Kym Cunningham
- Annie Worford
- Nsisong Udosen
- Mike Bagwell
- Ezra Fox
- Jasmine Templet
- Karen N. FitzGerald
- Christopher Diaz
Shipping & Regions
We are currently shipping Poemancer to residents in the U.S., U.K., and Canada.
Shipping costs for U.K.-based backers will determined after our fundraiser ends. While we can anticipate shipping costs in North America, the costs for shipping and distribution in the U.K. will be determined by how many backers we have and at what scale we end up shipping copies of Poemancer. Backers who are unable to afford shipping costs after they are determined will be able to receive their money back in full.
Finally, let us present to you Jameson, our beloved cat muse.
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Thank you for supporting Poemancer!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/poemancergame/poemancer-a-card-game-for-writing-poetry