PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Richard Siken lives in Tucson, Arizona. He is cofounder and editor of the literary magazine spork.
Siken writes about love, desire, violence, and eroticism with a cinematic brilliance and urgency that makes this one of the best books of contemporary poetry. -Victoria Chang, Huffington Post Siken writes about love, desire, violence, and eroticism with a cinematic brilliance and urgency that makes this one of the best books of contemporary poetry. -Victoria Chang, Huffington Post One book I keep returning to is Richard Siken's Crush. . . . The poems are vivid, heaving things, stuffed with obsession and surprises. . . . The poems aren't comforting, but they're invigorating. This is a book about thrashing around in the great big world, being messy, being alive. -Elizabeth A. Harris, New York Times Book Review Vital, immediate, and cinematic in scope, [Siken's] verse offers sharply observed vignettes of longing, love, and pain. -Library Journal (Best Poetry of 2005) Siken's debut collection derives its energy from the friction among bodies, selves, and lovers. . . . This book will excite patrons and be long remembered. Recommended for all collections. -Library Journal Vital, immediate, and cinematic in scope, [Siken's] verse offers sharply observed vignettes of longing, love, and pain. -Library Journal (Best Poetry of 2005) A powerful collection of poems . . . at once confessional, gay, savage, and charged with a violent eroticism. -Forecast A powerful collection of poems . . . at once confessional, gay, savage, and charged with a violent eroticism. -Forecast Crush embodies an impressive unity of sex, the currents of feeling that carry us helplessly, fleeting encounters that often promise physical transcendence but leave us unloved or emotionally drained. . . . Crush is a vivid, fast-paced book that may be read as a single, powerful sequence. -Antioch Review Finalist for the 2005 National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry Winner of the 2005 Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry, sponsored by The Publishing Triangle Finalist for the 2005 National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry Winner of the 2005 Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry, sponsored by The Publishing Triangle Crush is a wondrous, brilliant book. Richard Siken's poetry is daring in its construction, graceful yet startling in its beauty, and complicit with emotions and states of mind that would have remained unintelligible without him. -Dennis Cooper
