Student Essay: Crush by Richard Siken

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- tage to remain impartial. Both motorbikes are shiny red and both boys have perfect teeth, dark hair, soft hands. The one in front will want to take you apart, and slowly. His deft and stubby fingers searching every shank and lock for weaknesses. You could love this boy with all your heart. The other brother only wants to stitch you back together. The sun shines down. It's a beautiful day. Consider the hairpin turn. Do not choose sides yet.

"You are Jeff" goes on like this, weaving the reader in and out of these two brothers and placing them back together again. Siken goes as far as to make the reader an only child in the backseat of a station wagon witnessing the twins fighting on the side of the road, a child that has "never experienced anything [that] ferocious or intentional with another person" and telling the reader that "[t]here is an empty space next to you in the backseat of the station wagon. Make it the shape of everything you need. Now say hello." It is added layers like this that deeply complicate and enrich the poem. These complications mimic real life. How in life, all of these layers, like childhood and memory, can play into every decision a person can make.

The final stanza is where Siken brings the reader to their ultimate decision, whether or not they will choose love. Siken doesn't tell his reader to choose love, but somehow you leave the poem believing you did. …You're in the 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 wants his readers to go through the agony of panic and fear along with him in order to get to a place beyond it. To do this Siken leads his readers there through poetry. "As humans we strive to reach a place without worry or anxiety, a place of comfort where all are needs are cared for, a place without threat, a place where we no longer have to think, improve or judge ourselves. Art functions to jar us out of this place by engaging our emotions and showing us in relation to the world and to this other reality, which, ideally, will lead us to reconsider the terms of our lives and to resume our roles in the greater community" (Dobyns 194). Siken's poetry becomes a necessary porthole to venture through to come to conclusions and emotions that are beyond our experience. Siken will start somewhere unexpected like telling the reader about names and the many names of the objects of our world and then he'll keep going with that and when you expect him to stop he'll shift to a different aspect, a new topic so as not to lose your interest and then there he is, back naming names. It goes on like this until finally both the reader and the writer are at the other side of confusion together, and it's then that the reader and poet understand and can move forward.

Chemical names, bird names, names of fire and flight and snow, baby names, paint names, delicate names like bones in the body…

…Names of poisons, names of handguns, names of places we've been together, names of people we'd be together..

Till finally:

…but I can't go through with it. I just don't want to die anymore.

It is only at the end of the book that I truly understand the beginning. The reader gets into the book, like they would get into the ocean- with a deep dive. The introduction poem "Scheherazade" which is titled after the tale of a fictional Persian Queen who kept herself alive by telling stories at night to the angered and bitter King, is the point of departure for the rest of the book.

Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it's noon, that means we're inconsolable. 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.