I Do Know Some Things

The long-anticipated third collection from the revered Richard Siken delivers his most personal and introspective collection yet. Richard Siken’s long-anticipated third collection, I Do Know Some Things, navigates the ruptured landmarks of family trauma: a mother abandons her son, a husband chooses death over his wife. While excavating these losses, personal history unfolds. We witness Siken experience the death of a boyfriend and a stroke that is neglectfully misdiagnosed as a panic attack. Here, we grapple with a body forgetting itself-“”the mind that / didn’t work, the leg that wouldn’t move…””. Meditations on language are woven throughout the collection. Nouns won’t connect and Siken must speak around a meaning: “”dark-struck, slumber-felt, sleep-clogged.”” To say “”black tree”” when one means “”night.””Siken asks us to consider what a body can and cannot relearn. “”Part insight, part anecdote,”” he is meticulous and fearless in his explorations of the stories that build a self. Told in 77 prose poems, I Do Know Some Things teaches us about transformation. We learn to shoulder the dark, to find beauty in “”The field that had been swept clean of habit.”” —- ISBN: 9781556596247 | ISBN10: 1556596243 | ISBN-13: 978-1556596247