

I can participate in the Sherlock fandom because there’s room for me. I take no offense, I’m proud they found the poems worthy enough to include, but still: no wiggle room. The insistence that everything I’ve done so far is Wincest gives me no wiggle room. I feel honored by the Wincest community but there’s no place for me there. He explained why he never felt able to write Wincest fanfic: Richard was later active in Sherlock fandom, and shipping John Watson and Sherlock. Siken also said that " yes, the director of Supernatural read Crush and sent me fan mail", although its unclear if this is referring to Eric Kripke. I see the overlap - cars, guns, violence, danger, chasing and escaping, a relationship that seems more than brotherly but not quite romantic - but I think Crush and Supernatural are products of a cultural moment, not products of each other. Nothing I say convinces people otherwise, even though Crush was accepted for publication before Supernatural aired. There’s an unswayable belief that Crush is already and always has been Wincest.

Richard became aware of the popularity of his work in our fandom, and the speculation as to whether his work influenced Supernatural or vice versa.: He touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist,Īnd you feel your heart taking root in your body, Or swallowed pills, or shoveled yourself a grave in the dirt,Īnd you’re trying not to tell him that you love him, and you’re trying toĬhoke down the feeling, and you’re trembling, You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won’t tell you that he loves you,Īnd you feel like you’ve done something terrible, like robbed a liquor store, Many fans purchased the book and it inspired many fanworks, and even fan tattoos. It came out around the time Supernatural started in 2005, and fans soon discovered many parallels between the poems and the show, particularly Sam and Dean's relationship as seen by Wincest shippers. The book Crush is a series of poems described as "confessional, gay, savage, and charged with violent eroticism", and in part influenced by the death of Siken's boyfriend in 1991. He is the author of two collections of poetry - Crush (Yale University Press, 2005), which won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition in 2004 and War of the Foxes, which was released from Copper Canyon Press in 2015.

Richard Siken is a gay American poet, painter, and filmmaker. With all of us watching, with all of us wondering if these two boys will Like a monster, crawls up out of the lake A double-feature, two boys striking out across America, while desire,
