People like Richard Siken

Richard Siken (born February 15, 1967) is a North-American poet, painter, and filmmaker. He is the author of the collection Crush (Yale University Press, 2005), which won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition in 2004. 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.

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

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. The 1991 death of his boyfriend influenced his writing of the book.