Poetry in Motion: Craig Francis Power + Total Party Kill

The title of Craig Francis Power’s first collection of poetry, Total Party Kill (or TPK), is a colloquial term derived from the fantasy-themed table-top role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons and describes the situation during gameplay in which all player-characters die together. In short, the term denotes the worst possible outcome of any encounter within the game and is generally the result of overwhelmingly powerful enemies or overwhelmingly bad luck, or both.

Consisting of a series of prose poems that draw from D&D’s imagery, vernacular, and lore, the collection describes the author’s real-life struggle with addiction and sobriety through a shifting palimpsest of voices whose speakers are sometimes the author, sometimes one of his D&D characters, and sometimes a combination thereof. Appearing as monologues or short vignettes—but retaining exacting attention to line, meter, and rhythm—these poems not only interrogate certain hero narratives in which an exterior enemy is brought to ultimate defeat but also point to a journey in which nothing—particularly one’s continued sobriety—is for certain.

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Craig Francis Power (he/him) is a St. John’s-based multidisciplinary visual artist and the award-winning author of three previous novels: Blood Relatives, The Hope, and Skeet Love. Total Party Kill is his first collection of poetry.

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Total Party Kill is available now, here or from your favourite indie bookstore.

For more Poetry in Motion, click here.