Research Focus: Making Poetry More Accessible Through Play

My research for this project explores how play and game design can engage individuals in creative writing, particularly poetry, in ways that traditional instruction often fails to achieve. The culmination of this research is Dead Poets Rise, a board game co-created with Anna Purves and other collaborators, designed to make poetry an interactive, social experience. The project was driven by a central question: How can poetry be more accessible to both seasoned writers and those who have never written a poem before? Through iterative design, playtesting, and critical analysis of educational and ludic frameworks, Dead Poets Rise emerged as a model for integrating poetry into gameplay. The game challenges conventional learning by turning poetry composition into a dynamic and unpredictable process, fostering creative risk-taking and communal storytelling.

Project Timeline & Development

The development of Dead Poets Rise began in Spring 2020 when we worked with students in a seminar class to prototype and test different game mechanics that would encourage poetic engagement. These early prototypes explored different ways to structure creative writing prompts, integrate collaborative play, and introduce unpredictability into the writing process.

Following this seminar, Anna Purves and I continued independent development, incorporating what we learned from the class into a series of refined prototypes. Over successive iterations, we experimented with different methods of balancing structured composition with improvisational elements, ultimately arriving at a version of the game that seamlessly integrates poetry, strategy, and play.

Methodology: Game Mechanics as a Creative Framework

Through structured rounds of play, Dead Poets Rise engages players in a scaffolded creative process:

• Players select a historical poet to “rescue from obscurity,” introducing them to different poetic styles and traditions.
• Writing prompts (“Creation” Cards) provide structured yet open-ended exercises in poetic composition.
• “Chaos” Cards introduce disruption, requiring players to adapt their writing in unpredictable ways, mirroring real-world revision processes.
• Players participate in a final collaborative ranking exercise, comparing their own writing to actual lines written by the chosen poet—engaging in literary analysis through gameplay.

This iterative model of composition, revision, and evaluation makes poetry accessible as an organic, improvisational process, rather than an isolated or intimidating academic task.

Impact & Recognition

The project’s effectiveness in engaging both poetry enthusiasts and those new to creative writing has been recognized in both literary and gaming spaces. Dead Poets Rise is currently featured in the Level Up exhibition at the American Writers Museum in Chicago, an exhibition that examines how games and interactivity are shaping storytelling and literary engagement. Additionally, the game has been acquired for the permanent collection at Poets House, a national literary institution dedicated to poetry in New York City.

Conclusions & Future Research

The design and implementation of Dead Poets Rise demonstrate that poetry can thrive in non-traditional learning spaces, using play as a vehicle for creative exploration. By incorporating unpredictability, collaboration, and iterative composition into the poetic process, the game repositions poetry as something living, playful, and communal.

Future research and development will expand upon these findings, exploring digital adaptations and further applications of gamification in literary education. Through continued study, Dead Poets Rise serves as both a game and a research-driven framework for rethinking how creative writing is taught, experienced, and shared.

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