{"title":"Books by Richard Siken","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781556594779","title":"War of the Foxes","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\"This may be the most anticipated poetry book of the last decade...expect it to haunt you.\"-NPR.org\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Richard Siken writes about love, desire, violence, and eroticism with a cinematic brilliance and urgency.\"—\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eHuffington Post\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn reviewing Richard Siken's first book, \u003cem\u003eCrush,\u003c\/em\u003e the \u003cb\u003e\u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e \u003c\/b\u003ewrote that \"his territory is [where] passion and eloquence collide and fuse.\" In this long-awaited follow-up to \u003cem\u003eCrush,\u003c\/em\u003e Siken turns toward the problems of making and representation, in an unrelenting interrogation of our world of doublings. In this restless, swerving book simple questions—such as, \u003cem\u003eWhy paint a bird?\u003c\/em\u003e—are immediately complicated by concerns of morality, human capacity, and the ways we look to art for meaning and purpose while participating in its—and our own—invention.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Slippery, magnetic riffs on the arbitrary divisions made by the human mind in light of the mathematical abstractions that delete them; poetry lovers will want to read.\"—\u003cem\u003eL\u003cstrong\u003eibrary Journal\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e, starred review\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"[P]oems of passion, examining what it means to love, to be, and to create.\"—\u003cem\u003eVanity Fair\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Siken's stark, startling collection focuses tightly on both the futility and the importance of creating art.\"\u003cstrong\u003e—\u003cem\u003eBooklist\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Poems primarily about painting and representation give way to images that become central characters in a sequence of fable-like pieces. Animals, landscapes, objects, and an array of characters serve as sites for big, human questions to play out in distilled form. Siken's sense of line has become more uniform, this steadiness punctuated by moments of cinematic urgency.\"\u003cstrong\u003e—\u003cem\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"\u003cem\u003eWar of the Foxes\u003c\/em\u003e builds upon the lush and frantic magic of Richard Siken's first book, \u003cem\u003eCrush.\u003c\/em\u003e In this second book, Siken takes breathtaking control of the rich, varied material he has chosen...Siken paints and erases—the metaphor of painting with words allows him to leave those traces that mostly go unseen. He is the Trickster. If paint\/then no paint. He does this with astonishing candor and passion.\"—\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Rumpus\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Museum\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eTwo lovers went to the museum and wandered the rooms.\u003cbr\u003eHe saw a painting and stood in front of it\u003cbr\u003efor too long. It was a few minutes before she\u003cbr\u003erealized he had gotten stuck. He was stuck looking\u003cbr\u003eat a painting. She stood next to him, looking at his\u003cbr\u003eface and then the face in the painting. What do you\u003cbr\u003esee? she asked. I don't know, he said. He didn't\u003cbr\u003eknow. She was disappointed, then bored. He was\u003cbr\u003elooking at a face and she was looking at her watch.\u003cbr\u003eThis is where everything changed . . .\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRichard Siken\u003c\/strong\u003e is a poet, painter, and filmmaker. His first book, \u003cem\u003eCrush\u003c\/em\u003e, won the Yale Younger Poets' prize. He lives in Tucson, Arizona.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56303690645877,"sku":"9781556594779","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781556594779_99fd4b9b-ac7d-4de9-bff6-f9ad8a75bbeb.jpg?v=1786023659"},{"product_id":"9780300288698","title":"Crush – Twentieth Anniversary Edition","description":"The twentieth-anniversary edition of the influential first poetry collection by Richard Siken  An Atlantic choice for “Best American Poetry of the 21st Century (So Far)”   Since winning the 2004 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition, Crush has become a modern classic. This twentieth-anniversary edition includes a new introduction by award-winning poet Dana Levin and a new afterword by the author.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56367960523125,"sku":"9780300288698","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780300288698_b3cab727-e77c-483a-92e5-654cfaf5757d.jpg?v=1786012312"},{"product_id":"9781556596247","title":"I Do Know Some Things","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e*2025 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD Finalist*\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eI Do Know Some Things\u003c\/i\u003e is a brave book, both in content and method.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is brave to write about childhood scars and the heartbreak the dead leave behind. It is brave to reconfigure one's life in the aftermath of a stroke. Richard Siken presents these subjects directly, without ornament, and with nothing to hide behind, confronting the fact that he can no longer manipulate the constructions of form, or speak lies that tell the truth. In spite of these limitations, Siken chooses to write these poems and release them into a dangerous world. Each image, each sentence, is as direct as the American artist Jasper Johns's shooting targets. Each poem is like a small room in a house, a room where you will be punched in the throat. As he claws himself back into a self, into a body, Siken has written a book that is unsettling and autobiographical by necessity, and its seventy-seven prose poems invite the reader to risk a difficult intimacy in search of yet deeper truths.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56369032626549,"sku":"9781556596247","price":15.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781556596247_d2612981-c8ac-4f87-bc80-b15886453eb8.jpg?v=1786023667"},{"product_id":"9781784746629","title":"I Do Know Some Things","description":"'A spectacular comeback' Jeremy Noel Tod, Prospect'Siken’s signature intensity still throbs between sentences' The Yale ReviewA collection of pitch-perfect prose poems written in the immediate aftermath of a catastrophic stroke. From the author of cult poetry bestseller, Crush.   Richard Siken’s Crush was an underground international sensation. Twenty years on, he returns with the momentous I Do Know Some Things, cinematic in its tragic vision and emotive force.   In the aftermath of a stroke, the poet’s language and much of his memory is, for a time, wiped out. As his mind gropes its way back from oblivion, the scenery flickers between memories of a ruptured childhood and queer coming-of-age, and the precipice of the present. Each poem is a room in a ‘house owned by ghosts'.   In these seventy-seven prose poems, Siken has forged a new voice at once terrifying and vital. Brave in content and in method, I Do Know Some Things demands his recognition as an essential poet of our times.   ‘Thrums with reinvention: of the self, of the prose poem, of the false divide between the everyday and the surreal’ Andrew McMillanPraise for Crush:'Cumulative, driving, apocalyptic power' Louise Glück‘The immense wingspan of influence that Crush has on 21st-century American poetry cannot be overstated’ Ocean Vuong","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56369153966453,"sku":"9781784746629","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781784746629_b4ce8a2f-bbd0-4510-b667-812c52517ce7.jpg?v=1786025716"},{"product_id":"9780300278576","title":"Crush – Twentieth Anniversary Edition","description":"The twentieth-anniversary edition of the influential first poetry collection by Richard Siken  An Atlantic choice for “Best American Poetry of the 21st Century (So Far)”   Since winning the 2004 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition, Crush has become a modern classic. This twentieth-anniversary edition includes a new introduction by award-winning poet Dana Levin and a new afterword by the author.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56419554492789,"sku":"9780300278576","price":28.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780300278576_ef895b27-693b-4c1d-b843-f60c9afa9071.jpg?v=1786012870"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-richard-siken.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}