You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won’t tell you that he loves you, but he loves you. And you feel like you’ve done something terrible, like robbed a liquor store, or swallowed pills, or shoveled yourself a grave in the dirt, and you’re tired. You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and you’re trying not to tell him that you love him, and you’re trying to choke down the feeling, and you’re trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you didn’t even have a name for.” 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 I've read parts of this book separately and reading it whole now takes me to places I thought I left, a previous lover read to me a poem by him, I've read lines of the book once so many times that some days of mine were titled by some of these verses.

it’s fitting that this book is called crush with how it crushes you and then you’re left lying on your bed at 3am wondering who you were before you knew these words. I think that's the most beautiful piece of poetry I've ever read. I won't convince you. Here's my fav poem. 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 liked the first poems the most, but I'm not sure whether it's because I did like them or because I was still optimistic about the book. After a few poems you notice the repetition pretty early on. I figured it was a reoccurring theme type thing, which I usually grow fond of, but it kind of felt like saying the same thing over and over. After the first few poems it lost me until the second to last poem which I liked in a weird-dream-sequence kind of way, but even that dragged on just a little too long.Bullets, movie-like violence, car rides, stitches and gritty motel rooms form recurring themes in this bundle. The world sketched is grimy and bleak, with occasional flashes of beauty and tenderness, despite violence 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. Eventually something you love is going to be taken away. And then you will fall to the floor crying. And then, however much later, it is finally happening to you: you’re falling to the floor crying thinking, “I am falling to the floor crying,” but there’s an element of the ridiculous to it — you knew it would happen and, even worse, while you’re on the floor crying you look at the place where the wall meets the floor and you realize you didn’t paint it very well.”

how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple The Huffington Post's Victoria Chang praises the poet for writing with a "cinematic brilliance and urgency". [4]I'd seen this book quoted all over, and I really looked forward to reading it because of those quotes, which I quite liked, but those few that I'd read before even opening the book were almost the only quotes I liked after completing it. Richard Siken his debut bundle is exciting. The American setting, with derelict towns, very much reminded me of Ocean Vuong his novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, and the thematic overlap continues with the focus on gay love. At times bitter, harsh and disappointed, sometimes lyrical, the poems in Crush feel both urgent and true.

This is not a book about Prometheus, but it may as well be. (We are playing with fire here, after all. At least, love can feel like a fire.) Every poem in this book is essentially the same. The poems are strong individually, but read together, they build something stronger. Images are repeated again and again with only slight variations (driving on the road, running out onto the road, lying in the road). The poems can’t help but to return to the same thing again. It’s painful, but it’s a delicious pain, glorious in love and lust and in being alternately strong and vulnerable. I woke up in the morning and I didn’t want anything, didn’t do anything, couldn’t do it anyway, just lay there listening to the blood rush What the book doesn’t tell you directly is that Richard Siken was partially influenced by the death of his boyfriend. I don’t want to make any assumptions here about how that has influenced the content, but I will say that the poems read like a lover trying to move on from something that is, well, crushing. Moving on is not something you can just will yourself to do. 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. terrifically raw, dark, glimmering beautiful. i'm regretful that i'm not currently in a place where i can process such raw passion and anguish and aching (both aching as in longing and aching as in hurting). it's something that you need to be in the right emotional place for, to be present for feelings as vivid as these. i'll have to revisit this someday.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. You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won’t tell you that he loves you, but he loves you. And you feel like you’ve done something terrible, like robbed a liquor store, or swallowed pills, or shoveled yourself a grave in the dirt, and you’re tired. You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and you’re trying not to tell him that you love him, and you’re trying to choke down the feeling, and you’re trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you don’t even have a name for." 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 You are playing cards with three Jeffs. One is your father, one is your brother, and the other is your current boyfriend. All of them have seen you naked and heard you talking in your sleep. Your boyfriend Jeff gets up to answer the phone. To them he is a mirror, but to you he is a room. Phone's for you, Jeff says. Hey! It's Uncle Jeff, who isn't really your uncle, but you can't talk right now, one of the Jeffs has put his tongue in your mouth. Please let it be the right one." siken captures the Gay Longing in such a perfect, powerful way & suddenly you feel your heart taking root in your body