Richard Siken

We have to focus for a minute on Richard Siken's great modern poem "The Stag and the Quiver" in TheAwl, April 2014. It has the same old Anglo-Saxon or Ivanhoe feeling as some of the more traditional work of E.E. Cummings, but with more of a clear post-modern feel [ie. his famous poem "All in green went my love riding".]  There's a sense of the ancient, of the Anglo, and of the personal, the emotional--a great mix. Very moving.

Here's an excerpt:

1

Once there was a deer called stag. A white breasted, a many 

pointed. He refused to still when he halted, the hooves in 

his mind were always lifted. Everything comes close, the 

branches slide. In a clearing made of cleavings, stag sees 

another stag. They watch each other, they share no story. I 

will not cross you and you must move on. There is nothing 

else. It reminds me of some tale, stay with me to remember, 

it reminds me of where I was going without you.

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