The Cypress Chronicle

Last Updated:12:53 AM PST 10/3/08 Section: Creative Art

Richard Siken's Crush, a collection of poems, tells a single story; the chaos of love will leave you unsettled, uneasy, always. The poetic approach was a necessary medium to convey this message to its readers. The repetition and unruly sporadic language forgoes rules and gets into the energy of language. Silken uses this energy to alter the mental state of the reader, the same way a hypnotist uses language to entrance their listener. Louise Glück states in her introduction to the book that Crush has a heavy undercurrent of panic and this panic is a manic search for reason. In Glück's conclusion she quotes Emily Dickenson saying, "If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?"

Siken has indeed caused this reaction in his reader; he has pushed beyond what storytelling is generally accepted to be capable of. Siken's kind of poetry places its reader in the seat behind a wheel and gives them the choice to decide where they want to go next, almost the way God gives us free will, but we live in his world and in the possibilities of his world, just the way we live in Siken's world and in his possibilities during the span of our reading.

"You are Jeff" is a poem in which the reader is in the middle of a decision, whether or not they should love someone who has, like all people, parts they like and parts they don't, but that being said Siken asks that the reader keep their options open, and try not to be to partial to one part or the other. Here is the opening stanza:

There are two twins on motorbikes but one is farther up the road, beyond
the hairpin turn, or just before it, depending on which twin you are in
love with at the time. Do not choose sides yet. It is still to your advan-

Continued...

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