Richard Siken is an American poet, painter, and filmmaker. His poetry collection ***Crush*** won the 2004 Yale Series of Younger Poets prize, a Lambda Literary Award, the Thom Gunn Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His poems have appeared in *The Iowa Review*, *Conjunctions*, *Indiana Review* and *Forklift, Ohio*, as well as in the anthologies ***The Best American Poetry 2000*** and ***Legitimate Dangers***. He is a recipient of a Pushcart Prize, two Arizona Commission on the Arts grants, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.