Never Just a Game
Never Just a Game explores how the often-overlooked human practice of playing games can inform our lived experiences from the intimate and domestic to the cultural and historical. The games themselves drive the sound and form of the poems—from short narratives to lyrical observation to small experiments. Throughout, there is yearning—for connection with others and for living fully in each moment. Through it all are the tabletop games that conjure these stories, games from the Victorian Era to the present. And behind them is the question of how games speak to us as we gather at a table—friends, families, new companions—to craft a story together.
Praise for Never Just a Game
This collection explores our purposes and goals, our relationships, our myths. Just like the best games, this book will be a delight to return to again and again.
Katie Manning, editor-in-chief of Whale Road Review and author of How to Play
The speaker in these poems is restless and questing, never content at an easy happy ending, but using innovative language to plumb the specifics of what it truly means to win and lose.
Erin Coughlin Hollowell, author of Corvus and Crater
The poems are formal and relaxed, clever and moving, and best of all, made for our lives from games the poet himself has collected from attic, thrift store, and our grandparents' rec rooms. Bravo, James! Reader, get this book as soon as you can.
Hilda Raz, author of Somewhere I've Never Been: New and Collected Poems
Here life is not “just a game”—it is an authentically lived life animated by and through the sacred connections and human stories that games make possible: a life of friendship, of fatherhood, of love.
Jeremy Schraffenberger, editor at North American Review, author of American Sad
We wander wonder-filled and aching—the way a river opens to lake and the sky answers. By the poet’s hand, we are led deeper into ourselves, where striving, connection, and loss blur beautifully together.
Glenis Redmond, author of Listening Skin
Engelhardt’s playful approach shows how games provide opportunities for nuance and connection that can be both moving and mundane. It’s a fine line to walk—taking silly things seriously—but the result in this book speaks for itself: each game a box of poetry with mysteries and wonders to be unpacked.
Stephen Conway, Director of The Spiel Foundation and Host of The Spiel, a long-running boardgame podcast
