"Sam Gayton’s first collection of poems scores high,"
Sam Gayton’s stories are always playful, original, bursting with ideas and ‘what ifs’, so it’s no surprise that his first poetry collection is too.
The poems in Press Start to Play often have their starting point in video games, playground games or word games, and there’s lots of fun to be had in poems like ‘I Am Monopoly, Destroyer of Families, All Shall Play Me and Despair’, ‘High Score Holder’ or ‘The Three Year Olds Are Having a Match’.
There are poems that are puzzles, satisfying and shareable, and more that grow from word play. Others though, while still celebrating the joy that games provide, are quieter and more contemplative, poems like ‘I Wish Today Had Been a Game’ or ‘The World Within My Bedroom’, which will also strike a chord with readers.
Throughout, poetry is presented as a top game, one that gives you a chance to explore, play, develop ideas and stretch your imagination so it’s great that poems to prompt poetry writing are also included. A collection like this, reader-focussed and that places rollicking rhymes, riddles, wordplay and poems about school alongside thought-provoking poems that broaden readers’ view of the world, is definitely a winner.
The design is great too, with a special flick book element included.
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