Richard Siken

Richard Siken (born February 15, 1967) is an American poet, painter, and filmmaker.

The 1990 death of his boyfriend influenced his writing of the book.

Siken's book War of the Foxes became a recipient of two residencies with the Lannan Residency Program, and a Lannan Literary Selection.

Siken currently lives in Tucson, Arizona.

In 2001, Siken co-founded Spork Press, where he continues to work as an editor.

Crush won the 2004 Yale Series of Younger Poets prize, selected by Louise Glück.

It was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Lambda Literary Award, and the Thom Gunn Award.

Siken is also the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, two Arizona Commission on the Arts grants, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

He is the author of the collection Crush (Yale University Press, 2005), which won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition in 2004.

Siken received a Literature Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, and his book Crush was awarded the Lambda Literary Award for "Gay Men's Poetry" in 2005, and the Thom Gunn Award from Publishing Triangle.

His second book of poems, War of the Foxes, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2015.

Siken was born in New York City.

He studied at and received a B.A. in psychology and later a Master of Fine Arts in poetry from the University of Arizona.

He is his mother's only child, with a half-brother on his father's side 16 years older, who never lived with him.

He has a stepsister and two stepbrothers, who are all over 10 years older than him and have never lived with him.

On March 19, 2019, Siken reported on his Facebook that he had recently suffered a stroke.

On December 4, 2020, he published his first post-stroke poem, "Real Estate" on poets.org after announcing it on his Facebook the day prior.

On July 9, 2023, he announced his new book I Do Know Some Things comes out in Fall 2024.

Siken described the new publication on Twitter as "77 prose poems about what I can remember about my life. It is autobiographical. A backstage pass."