![]() ![]() In his book, Siken writes about panic without saying “panic” and writes about obsession without risking cliché sentimentality or becoming predictable. Danielle told me to read that poem and then go home and buy the book.Ĭrush won the 2004 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition. In trying to point me to poems that displayed different kinds of tension (dramatic, linguistic, as well as tension in form, in juxtaposition, in movement, etc.) she gave me a packet of poems that modeled these, as well as a list of exercises that might help me generate work that inherently contained “tension.” The first poem in the packet was Siken’s “ Planet of Love,” filed under “dramatic tension” section. While working on my MA thesis, a chapbook of poems, at the University of Cincinnati, one of my professors, Danielle Deulen, in reviewing my work, said that my poems lacked tension. Though at this point I had been studying poetry for years, this is the book that made me love poetry. ![]() This was the book that made me think I might want to read a collection of poems as much as I’d want to read a novel, something I’d never even imagined. Richard Siken’s Crush changed poetry for me after reading this book, poetry suddenly became something that was passionate, tender, and complicated, but also accessible. In honor of Valentine’s Day this week, I want to celebrate a book of poems I’m in love with. ![]()
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