The annotated Blakes-Sephen. Part 1.
Poet William Blakes-Sephen was born in 1978 in Doncaster. His collected works including poetry, prose and illustrations will form the basis of this module. He is best known for his poem “Tyger” about the dichotomy between the natural and the divine in EA’s “PGA tour 2005″. However, the poem we’ll be discussing today is in a different vein. Written as an ode to the puzzle game, “Meteos” on the Nintendo DS it is simply entitled “Five minutes and two seconds”.
Five Minutes and Two Seconds by William Blakes-Sephen
Squares that fall from unseen heavens (1)
Mount themselves figurehead ‘pon towering columns (2)
That stem from checker-board foundation,
A Babel reborn, a heretic collation. (3)
The earth, the sky and in-betwixt
The terrible wall doth interdict
The tiled construct, the day consumes
Blots out the sun and stars eschews,
But with stylus glide, the tiles reorder; (4)
Shatter columns and rupture border (5)
Launch jagged section into the air
Watch fragment burn and rockets flare.
But oh, how rapid squares descend (6)
And though the player prays defend,
The wall of blocks gathers strength
And doubles in width and height and length (7).
Despite the stylus frantic scribble,
Evermore the orthogonal kipple.(8)
Down and down the boxy rain
The battle lost , the player slain. (9)
Free, the blocks join untrammelled
The sky engulfed, the day enamelled
Pushed out the sea, and buried land (10)
Betrayed the world, by player’s hand. (11)
It is difficult to analyse this poem without first understanding the subject it engages. Meteos is an addictive puzzle game for Nintendo’s dual-screen mobile gaming platform. It bears some similarity to the older Gameboy puzzle title “Tetris” which itself was the subject of two of Blakes-Sephen’s poems namely “The little block lost” and “The little block found”.
Indeed the opening line of Five minutes references the basic driving factor of both Meteos and Tetris, specifically the constant drip of elements from an unseen source (1) above the player’s viewport. Blakes-Sephen addresses the result of this influx in the second line in which he describes the forming of columns atop which these elements sit (2). Much in the same manner as Tetris, these blocks pile up at the bottom of the screen. However, Meteos differs significantly from Tetris in that allows the player no control over these descending elements, a fact that is communicated in tone on inevitability that encompasses the poem as a whole.
A biblical reference made toward the end of the first verse points us to the story of the tower of Babel from Genesis (3). Indeed, the story shares a similar theme with that of the game:
“…let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And whence they lay the brick upon the earth in coloured triplet, the slime ignite. Lo the stone did unto the air risen…”[Genesis 11:1-9]
This aspect of the game mechanic is explored further in the second verse in which the process of reordering the tiles through the gentle caress of the device’s stylus is described (4). The subsequent destruction of the tiles through this act is highlighted and this verse acts as a counter point to the oppressive vision generated in the first, signifying the hope associated with the players efforts to combat this terrible force (5).
Of course, as with all tragedies, this effort is ultimately in vain and we see the resurgence of the this unstoppable force with the quickening of the rate of tiles dropping from above (6). In essence the battle is already over at this point, the influx of tiles on to the screen overwhelming our player and leaving them powerless to hold back the tide (7).
Interestingly, Blakes-Sephen uses the term “kipple” to describe the scene at the end of this verse (8), a term that was coined by science fiction writer Philip K. Dick in his novel “Do androids dream of electric sheep?”. It refers to “unwanted or useless junk that tends to reproduce itself” and it is unclear whether Blakes-Sephen adopted it as he felt it was the best fit, or simply because he need a word to rhyme with “scribble”.
The final verse deals primarily with the inevitable defeat of the player (9). The impression here is that the game is not designed to allow a player to win, or even to maintain a status quo, it is designed to beat them and in the shortest time possible. However, as we have learned, the game does this by simple numbers, not through any great strategy or tactic, but by overwhelming the player with endless tasks to deal with (10). In a sense then, it is not the game that wins, but rather the player that fails. Every defeat feels to the player like a failure in themselves and blame therefore seems justly apportioned in the final line (11).
When originally sent for publishing Blakes-Sephen declared that he had “enjoyed Meteos to the point where its poetry could be plucked effortlessly from the ether”. Of course, when actually sent for print this statement had been reduced to “7/10″.
We will be discussing more of William Blakes-Sephen’s works in future lessons.