Reviews for Crush

The average rating for Crush based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-08-16 00:00:00 Peter Giambalvo siken captures the Gay Longing in such a perfect, powerful way & suddenly you feel your heart taking root in your body also it's cool how u can just know that a person is straight™ if they claim they 1) don't understand why blood & death r such prominent themes in these poems and/or 2) didn't find any deeper meaning in them

Review # 2 was written on 2011-06-13 00:00:00 Lawrence Thompkins "and the gentleness that comes, not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it." I read Richard Siken's poem "Wishbone" on the internet. I read it once and closed the page. The next day I was painfully aware I couldn't leave it behind. That my mind kept circling back to his words. So I read it and re-read it again and again. Dozens of times, until I realised it would never be enough, so I ordered his book. I have never in my life anticipated the arrival of a book more than I did with this. My entire body was aching for it. And then it arrived. With a start like this, and with expectations as high as mine, you'd think the book would come up short. That it would somehow not deliver. But it does. It truly fucking does. Siken is beyond talented with words, that much is clear, this entire collection is a work of pure art, something you rarely find these days. Every line is powerful, it's got secrets. Every poem has meaning, and soul and something deeply terrifying about it. I am in love with it. That's the easiest way to put it. My copy is worn out from being opened, read in, then thrown onto the table or put carelessly down as I try to gather myself up from my messy emotional pile on the floor and try to deal with, well... myself. I've read many books, some of them have taught me about the world, about people, about feelings or ideas. This book taught me something monumental about myself. It changed me, and I'm not even kidding or exaggerating. I read it (or devoured it might be more accurate) and suddenly found a side of myself put into words. Words I was never able to find myself, but needed more deeply than I'd realised. I'll never stop reading this book, and that's the great thing with poetry, analyzing, understanding and interpreting and simply feeling it, is a never-ending process. I carry his words with me everywhere, both in the shape of his actual book, but also in who I am. "Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us. These, our bodies, possessed by light. Tell me we'll never get used to it."