parenthood

Curt Curtal Sonnet Corona Based on Sonnet Corona by Nick Montfort December 2020 

Gerard Manley Hopkins invented the curtal sonnet, a 3/4 abbreviation of the Petrarchan sonnet in which each section of the form is proportionately shortened: the octave becomes a sestet, the sestet a quatrain with an extra tail. In March 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Nick Montfort published “Sonnet Corona,” a tiny program that can generate a crown of 3^14 or 4,782,969 potential sonnets. Its 14 monometer lines evoke the enclosure and uncertainty of the early lockdown. “Curt Curtal Sonnet Corona” utilizes Montfort’s code to generate 4^11 or 4,194,304 curtal, 11-line sonnets with 4 variables per line. The abbreviated form felt appropriate to my feelings about this moment at the end of a very difficult year, but one illuminated by hope, as my son, due in January 2021, decided he couldn’t wait and joined our family in the final weeks of December. "Curt Curtal Sonnet Corona" is dedicated to Dorothea and Dashiell. The generator is available at amaranthborsuk.com/curtalcorona. 

Sample poems: 

1. we ask in mind one shot a dash deadlines for naught 

so long we sigh fine wrought our hope— starbright . starbrought 

2. we thrash resigned uncaught held fast fault lines drawn taut 

so long entwined one thought keep on— our light . our lot 

3. we thrash still blind a dot at last headlines in knots 

headstrong we sigh unknot our hope— forthright . forethought 

4. we ask resigned a dot a dash deadlines drawn taut 

heartstrung we sigh unknot new song— our light . our lot 

(Source: Author's abstract)

In recent years independent and amateur videogame designers have come from the margins to test the boundaries of the medium. Using forms like the ‘walking simulator’ and the ‘desktop simulator’ - forms that forego challenge and combat in favour of storytelling - they have pioneered new modes of interactive autobiography, exploring topics such as parenthood, gender, mental health, grief and faith. Meanwhile, gamer masculinity, that normative and normatizing identity, has been evolving. As the ‘hardcore gamer’ generation grows up, commercial videogame publishers have begun courting this ageing audience with titles that aim to satisfy gaming traditionalists (for whom independent games are often considered too sedate and cerebral to qualify as ‘real’ videogames) while also engaging issues like fatherhood and neurotypicality. This panel sheds light on gaming culture’s growing pains by addressing a series of titles centred on boys and their brains. These games enlist players in advancing stories about survivalist dads and decapitated know-it-alls, terminally ill toddlers and quasi-autistic online gamers. Inviting us to consider the terms on which games reinforce or challenge heteronormative and neuronormative cultural biases, they also ask how these biases bring to light (or further push to the periphery) “gamer masculinity” as a construct.