I Do Know Some Things
Published on 26. March 2026
128 pages
978-1-5299-8429-3 (ISBN)
Description
'Cumulative, driving, apocalyptic power' Louise Glueck, from the Foreword to Crush
I Do Know Some Things is a brave book, both in content and method. It is brave to write about childhood scars and the heartbreak the dead leave behind. It is brave to reconfigure one's life in the aftermath of a stroke.
Richard Siken presents these subjects directly, without ornament, and with nothing to hide behind, confronting the fact that he can no longer manipulate the constructions of form, or speak lies that tell the truth. In spite of these limitations, Siken chooses to write these poems and release them into a dangerous world. Each image, each sentence, is as direct as the American artist Jasper Johns's shooting targets. Each poem is like a small room in a house, a room where you will be punched in the throat.
As he claws himself back into a self, into a body, Siken has written a book that is unsettling and autobiographical by necessity, and its seventy-seven prose poems invite the reader to risk a difficult intimacy in search of yet deeper truths.
'The immense wingspan of influence that Crush has on 21st-century American poetry cannot be overstated' Ocean Vuong
I Do Know Some Things is a brave book, both in content and method. It is brave to write about childhood scars and the heartbreak the dead leave behind. It is brave to reconfigure one's life in the aftermath of a stroke.
Richard Siken presents these subjects directly, without ornament, and with nothing to hide behind, confronting the fact that he can no longer manipulate the constructions of form, or speak lies that tell the truth. In spite of these limitations, Siken chooses to write these poems and release them into a dangerous world. Each image, each sentence, is as direct as the American artist Jasper Johns's shooting targets. Each poem is like a small room in a house, a room where you will be punched in the throat.
As he claws himself back into a self, into a body, Siken has written a book that is unsettling and autobiographical by necessity, and its seventy-seven prose poems invite the reader to risk a difficult intimacy in search of yet deeper truths.
'The immense wingspan of influence that Crush has on 21st-century American poetry cannot be overstated' Ocean Vuong
More details
Edition
New edition
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Edition type
New edition
File size
1,27 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-5299-8429-3 (9781529984293)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Richard Siken is a poet, painter, and filmmaker. His book Crush won the 2004 Yale Series of Younger Poets prize, selected by Louise Glueck, a Lambda Literary Award, a Thom Gunn Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is also the author of War of the Foxes (Copper Canyon Press, 2015). Siken is a recipient of a Pushcart Prize, two Lannan Fellowships, two Arizona Commission on the Arts grants, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in Tucson, Arizona.
