As that is the case, the king will have no choice but to spare her another night so he may hear the rest of the tale. To avoid this fate, Scheherazade devises a plan: she will tell the king a captivating story every night however, the stories are too long to be finished by sunrise. I re-familiarized myself with the surrounding plot of One Thousand and One Nights: Scheherazade is to be married to a vicious, bitter king who kills all of his wives on their wedding night.

But its presence and power were undeniable, and I let them possess me to whatever extent they wished.Įventually, I broke down, owned up to my fault, and refreshed my knowledge of the character from whom the title is taken.

Yet, despite reading and loving and being destroyed by it over and over and over again, I could not articulate what it was that struck such a chord within me, or which chord was struck, or how the player found the chord, or what instrument was even being played. I’ll assume that fact that I read the poem twenty five consecutive times over the course of two days is a testament to the fact that I must have understood its tension-its longing for continuation-on some personal, emotional, non-mechanical level.

After three more weeks and innumerable returns to Siken’s scant, pulsing work, a true grasp of the poem still had not stricken me. I am going to be frank: I did not actually understand Richard Siken’s “Scheherazade” the first time I read it, or the next time, or the twenty three times I read it over the following two days. The name of the tale was recognizable, and I felt erroneously confident in my understanding of what it was trying to reference. Returning to Google again, I learned that the title is the name of the narrator of One Thousand and One Nights. The quotation’s credit did not include the poem’s title, but, through a quick Google search, I found the full text, unfamiliar and challenging title included. I read the lines over and over, metaphorically relinquishing my body to Siken’s light. Even out of context, the closing was elegant-sleek and succinct, concentrated and brimming. They felt like a promise, an escape, a coming home. The words themselves felt small and warm and radiant. “These, our bodies possessed by light.” I was floored. I was introduced to Richard Siken’s “Scheherazade” this past July through a tumblr quotation highlighting the last three lines of the poem: “Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.

Siken poetry