Roguelike

Mathew Henderson'sRoguelike, the much-anticipated follow-up to his acclaimed 2012 debutThe Lease, melds the unique online vocabulary, cultureand logic of video games with family and addiction narratives, specifically the poet's relationship with his mother and her struggle with narcotics. The resulting poems are arresting and fresh, mining game mythology, fantasyand family history, while exploring the rich connection between video gaming and notions of addiction, repetition, storytellingand escapism.

Though the poems are largely narrative, ultimatelyRoguelikeis less about stories themselves than it is about the psychological and emotional forces that define how and why we make them how we're all moved to shape the disparate and seemingly unconnected events of our lives into something meaningful, to make sense of the past and the present through storytelling. (From House of AnansiPress)

Mathew Hendersonis a poet fromTracadie, Prince Edward Island. His first poetry collection,The Lease, was a finalist forthe 2013 Trillium Book Awardand the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award.

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