William Carlos Williams' This is Just to Say: The Game. On Calum Rodger's "Gotta Eat the Plums"

 

Poem as a point and click adventure. Given the fact that pretty much every walking simulator "art game" is trying to evoke those "poetic" "instances" and generate "poetic experience" by its non-gameplay - it would have been obvious just to adapt a poem into a game.

At the very least, adapting the text into a game mechanic and interpreting the plot would be a good creative challenge - definitely more focused than usual nondescript "pushing through some images and feeling feelings doing that".

But for some reason, I've never seen such projects up until now. I've seen interactive poetry, I've seen games that quote poems, but no game adaptations of poems (Dante's Inferno doesn't count).

And now Calum Rodger did just that with "Gotta Eat the Plums". William Carlos Williams' poem This is Just to Say (aka the one about being sorry about eating the plums) is probably the best candidate for such experiment.

In the recent years, This is Just to Say had experienced a resurgence because of twitterbots doing procedural variations of the text and numerous parodies trending on social media (even i did a variation last year). It is easy to see why the poem is popular - it is relatable and easy to follow.

We all had moments like this, so the poem soaks all those experiences and permutates with each reader' reflection. On the other hand, it retains boundary-pushing drive of modernist poetry while almost poking fun at other poets of its time like of Ezra Pound, Hart Crane, Basil Bunting or e.e. cummings. It does the same things but in a simpler and more efficient manner.


"Gotta Eat the Plums" lets you to experience the poem from inside out, to get the poem. It is an attempt to recreate the thought process, the drama roiling behind the text. You play as William Carlos Williams up at night, hungry. He came down to "investigate" the kitchen for something to eat. That's the first part of the game.

 

You can turn the music on if you want. The soundtrack is Erik Satie's Gymnopedia #1, because of course, ye olde vaporwave vibe, pal. It gets maddening after a while. You can also look in the window and contemplate the starry night sky. There is also a cat walking around, expecting to get his piece of the action. You can look at his dish, but there is nothing for a poet. You can consider the asphodel as a solution.
But the main task is to search the kitchen cupboards for consumables. You don't want to cook anything so you are left with no choice but to open the refrigerator.

There you find an icebox with plums.

That's where the gear shifts gears and turns into a battle of will and hunger.

The thing is - the plums are not yours and it is probably a good idea to suck it up and find a way out of without making grounds for the conflict.

You can wrestle with your conscience for some time, but the hunger is stronger and the only way you can proceed is to eat those plums.

And then, overwhelmed with guilt, you'll write the note, that is actually a poem the game is based on. Curtains.

"Gotta eat the plums" makes "This is just to say" new. That's how you do an adaptation of the piece. Enough said.