Tag: richard siken

Richard Siken: “Unfinished Duet”

Photographer Unknown, Unfinished Duet

    • At first there were too many branches
      so he cut them and then it was winter.
      He meaning you. Yes. He would look out
      the window and stare at the trees that once
      had too many branches and now seemed
      to have too few. Is that all? No, there were
      other attempts, breakfasts: plates served,
      plates carried away. He doesn’t know
      what to do with his hands. He likes the feel
      of the coffeepot. More than the hacksaw?
      Yes, and he likes flipping the chairs,
      watching them fill with people. He likes
      the orange juice and toast of it, and waxed
      floors in any light. He wants to be tender
      and merciful. That sounds overly valorous.
      Sounds like penance. And his hands?
      His hands keep turning into birds and
      flying away from him. Him being you.
      Yes. Do you love yourself? I don’t have to
      answer that. It should matter. He has a
      body but it doesn’t matter, clean sheets
      on the bed but it doesn’t matter. This is
      where he trots out his sadness. Little black
      cloud, little black umbrella. You miss
      the point: the face in the mirror is a pale
      and naked hostage and no one can tell
      which room he’s being held in. He wants
      in, he wants out, he wants the antidote.
      He stands in front of the mirror with a net,
      hoping to catch something. He wants to
      move forward into the afternoon because
      there is no other choice. Everyone in this
      room got here somehow and everyone in
      this room will have to leave. So what’s left?
      Sing a song about the room we’re in?
      Hammer in the pegs that fix the meaning
      to the landscape? The voice wants to be
      a hand and the hand wants to do something
      useful. What did you really want? Someone
      to pass this with me. You wanted more.
      I want what everyone wants. He raises
      the moon on a crane for effect, cue the violins.
      That’s what the violins are for. And yes,
      he raises the moon on a crane and scrubs it
      until it shines. So what does it shine on?
      Nothing. Was there no one else? Left-handed
      truth, right-handed truth, there’s no pure
      way to say it. The wind blows and it makes
      a noise. Pain makes a noise. We bang on
      the pipes and it makes a noise. Was there
      no one else? His hands keep turning into
      birds, and his hands keep flying away
      from him. Eventually the birds must land.

—Richard Siken, Unfinished Duet, Crush

Born in New York City in February of 1967, Richard Siken is an American painter, poet, and filmmaker. He studied at the University of Arizona, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and later a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry.

Richard Siken is one of the co-founders and editors of Spork Press, established in 2001. Besides publishing its “Spork” literary magazine, the press produces novels and chapbooks, some of which were released in serial form. Siken received a Literature Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment of the Arts and two Arizona Commission on the Arts grants.

Influenced by the 1991 death of his boyfriend, Richard Siken wrote his collection of poems “Crush” which was published by Yale University Press.. A powerful literary work that is confessional, gay, and infused with eroticism, “Crush” won the 2004 Yale Younger Poets Competition, and received the Lambda Literary Award for “Gay Men’s Poetry” in 2005, and the Thom Gunn Award from Publishing Triangle in 2006. It was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Siken’s most recent work, his second book of poems, “War of the Foxes”, was released from Copper Canyon Press in 2015. With interwoven lyrics, fables, portraits and landscapes, Siken confronts the ways in which we look to art for meaning and purpose. The poems in “The War of the foxes” show the fallacies inherent in a search for truth, both in the world outside and within the self.

Richard Siken currently lives and works in Tucson, Arizona.

Richard Siken: “I Am the Wind”

Photographer Unknown, I Am the Wind

“I am the wind and the wind is invisible, all the leaves tremble but I am invisible, blackbird over the dark field but I am invisible, what fills the balloon and what it moves through, knot without rope, bloom without flower, galloping without the horse, the spirit of the thing without the thing, location without dimension, without a within, song without throat, word without ink, wingless flight, dark boat in the dark night, shine without light, pure velocity, as the hammer is a hammer when it hits the nail and the nail is a nail when it meets the wood and the invisible table begins to appear out of mind, pure mind, out of nothing, pure thinking, hand of the mind, hand of the emperor, arm of the empire, void and vessel, sheath and shear, and wider, and deeper, more vast, more sure, through silence, through darkness, a vector, a violence, and even farther, and even worse, between, before, behind, and under, and even stronger, and even further, beyond form, beyond number, I labor, I lumber, I fumble forward through the valley as winter, as water, a shift in the river, I mist and frost, flexible and elastic to the task, a fountain of gravity, space curves around me, I thirst, I hunger, I spark, I burn, force and field, force and counterforce, agent and agency, push to your pull, parabola of will, massless mass and formless form, dreamless dream and nameless name, intent and rapturous, rare and inevitable, I am the thing that is hurtling towards you…” 

—Richard Siken, Lovesong of the Square Root of Negative One, War of the Foxes

Born in New York City in February of 1967, Richard Siken is an American painter, poet, and filmmaker. He studied at the University of Arizona, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and later a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry. 

Richard Siken is one of the co-founders and editors of Spork Press, established in 2001. Besides publishing its “Spork” literary magazine, the press produces novels and chapbooks, some of which were released in serial form. Siken received a Literature Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment of the Arts and two Arizona Commission on the Arts grants. 

Influenced by the 1991 death of his boyfriend, Richard Siken wrote his collection of poems “Crush” which was published by Yale University Press.. A powerful literary work that is confessional, gay, and infused with eroticism, “Crush” won the 2004 Yale Younger Poets Competition, and received the Lambda Literary Award for “Gay Men’s Poetry” in 2005, and the Thom Gunn Award from Publishing Triangle in 2006. It was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. 

Siken’s most recent work, his second book of poems, “War of the Foxes”, was released from Copper Canyon Press in 2015. With interwoven lyrics, fables, portraits and landscapes, Siken confronts the ways in which we look to art for meaning and purpose. The poems in “The War of the foxes” show the fallacies inherent in a search for truth, both in the world outside and within the self.

Richard Siken currently lives and works in Tucson, Arizona.