War of the Foxes

As always, Siken has a remarkable ability to craft the most brilliant and beautiful turns of phrase.

Unfortunately, the poems he fashioned out of them...I hadn't a blasted clue what they were supposed to mean 80% of the time. If I hadn't been reading this for a challenge - and felt like I owed it to Siken to keep trudging through after how long I've adored Crush - I would have put it down after a couple pages.

Still, there were a couple good poems in there and several great quotes. I mean:

“Everyone needs a place. It shouldn't be inside of someone else.”

He definitely still has a way with words.

But overall, the poems were aimless, and the few themes that made any sense were strange and disturbing.

The only thing this collection succeeded in doing is making me want to re-read Crush. I didn't want Crush all over again, but I expected something with the similar depth and feeling. And I most definitely did not get it.

3 stars. Barely.

i love this book so much :(((

06/05/21 edit: forever my favorite poetry book

3.5-4

the top two reviews of this book i think put a lot of my thoughts into words already so thank you for that, reviewers.

war of the foxes is definitely less quotable and less personal than crush. i think that???s the main reason for taking away some stars, that the thing that drew me (and, i think, many others) to crush is how personal and raw it was, how it touched me to my core with its beauty and its pain. war of the foxes is more distant and i missed the closeness i remembered from crush. but i think it???d do me good to reread this book in a little while, so i can see it as its separate entity, which is what it deserves. i have to remind myself that there were over 10 years between the publishing of crush and the publishing of war of the foxes - richard siken has clearly grown and developed himself and his poetry and his scope.

favourites: landscape with a blur of conquerors; birds hover the trampled field; landscape with several small fires; war of the foxes; ghost, zero, suitcase, and the moon, lovesong of the square root of negative one, self-portrait against red wallpaper