Final Favorite

"Scheherazade", Richard Siken

"Scheherazade" was the first poem that I read that truly had an impact on me. I was struck by the language of it; I thought it was very rich and beautiful. Before reading it, I had never really felt moved by a poem. The simple words of a poem had never caused me to feel anything, had never made me emotional. I could immediately relate to "Scheherazade", though, and I read it over and over again, discovering something new every time I did. It also made me want to read more of Siken's work. I went searching for other poems of his and found many more that were equally as compelling as "Scheherazade". Looking at more of Siken's work eventually stemmed off to looking at the works of many other poets and I ended up discovering many more poems that I loved. "Scheherazade" was not only very striking, but also got me interested in poetry in a way that I had never been before. Out of my mini-anthology, "Scheherazade" was the poem that had the most impact on me and manifested an interest in poetry in me that I never would discovered if I had never read it.