'The Poet's Visual Novel' is a minimalistic and meditative story about the creation, collaboration, and analysis of art, and in this visual novel's case, about visual novels (very meta). By the writer's admission, this is heavily influenced by a director, Hong Sang-soo, and his film 'The Novelist's Film', and while I haven't seen the film, just one look at the trailer on youtube, you can immediately see the stylistic inspiration. The visual novel itself is surprisingly clever in it's repetitive and cyclical nature, softly but persistently beating you over the head on what this visual novel is about. There's almost a dull mundaneness to the entirety of it, though still managing to eek out a dramatic twist at the end, that somehow feels vicious yet completely fair. There's not so subtle allegories and metaphors being portrayed about the process of making art and putting it out to be judged and consumed. There's also a not so subtle reminder that collaboration can be as difficult and cutthroat, no matter what the size or scale of a project. The UI presentation is also really clever as well, especially when you consider themes in the VN, as well as the fact that a custom engine was used to portray the stock Ren'Py default UI. This visual novel has a lot to say, even if at times it comes off as pre-self-justifying. I can admit that it's probably not going to be to everyone's taste or attention span. This one is good for readers that have the patience to sit through some slow dialog and are in a particularly artsy mood to contemplate the nature of interpreting art.