Richard Siken has always been a fanfic enthusiast

On Aug. 7, 2023, acclaimed poet Richard Siken posted on the social media platform previously often called Twitter. This wouldn’t be out of the unusual, besides the tweet was about fanfiction — extra particularly, Siken’s personal fanfiction writing expertise.

“I have tried it and my Destiel is better writing than my Wincest,” wrote Siken, referring to 2 very talked-about Supernatural ships. “My Johnlock is better than both.” (Johnlock is the pairing of John Watson and Sherlock Holmes from BBC’s Sherlock.)

And throughout Twitter (effectively, X, as CEO Elon Musk not too long ago rebranded it) and Tumblr, these acquainted with how influential Siken’s work is throughout totally different fandom communities went wild.

You see, Siken’s poetry has lengthy been a elementary a part of the fandom expertise, significantly for individuals who are extraordinarily on-line. Fans throughout tons of various TV reveals, films, and video games — significantly these with huge slash (male-male pairings) ships — have added strains from his poetry as captions on their fanart for years, superimposed it on craving gif edits, and even titled their very own fanfiction with it. Seeing the poet not solely acknowledge he is aware of about and approves of fanfiction, but in addition that he actively participates in fandom, was surreal.

This was particularly startling to youthful followers, a lot of whom posted to Tumblr and X (née Twitter) expressing their shock that Siken is 1) alive and a pair of) not some man who lived 100 years in the past. Siken needed to follow up with a tweet reminding everybody that he’s, certainly, alive and likewise a twenty first century poet.

Here’s the factor: Siken’s fondness for fanfiction isn’t new in any respect. In truth, the poet gave a prolonged interview to The Awl eight years in the past, the place he mentioned all issues Sherlock, Supernatural, and fandom-related. He has been fairly open about what he loves about fanfiction, and about writing his personal fic. Back in 2015, he was energetic on Tumblr, reblogging fan edits of Sherlock that featured his quotes, posting about his newly-made AO3 account, and taking polls about who would high in a John Watson and Sherlock Holmes smut fic.

But lately, he’s been much less energetic on social media, particularly after he had a extreme stroke in 2019 (this might doubtlessly clarify why many youthful followers assumed he was not alive). He solely simply returned to the platform formally often called Twitter this July, which he says is because Siken Bot, the favored Twitter bot that posted snippets of his poetry, went down and he needed to fill in for it. (Siken Bot is now known as Siken Poems, as a result of it’s not a bot, however slightly run by somebody who schedules tweets upfront. Siken says they’re going to work together).

It solely took Siken a few weeks to completely dive again into social media and embrace the chaos of fan tradition. The Johnlock and Destiel tweets had been solely the start. He is now actively replying to folks on X, providing his ideas on different reveals and pairings (as an example, Hannigram, the pairing of Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham from Hannibal), and giving writing advice, among other things.

Siken clearly understands fandom tradition — and he additionally particularly understands what it’s about his poetry that’s so interesting to fan artists and fic writers. He even tweeted that followers can connect strains of his poetry to mainly any fandom picture or pairing and it really works, as a result of his poems are “sad and mopey and full of longing.” Then, he demonstrated this by recreating a few of his most well-known strains in I Can Has Cheezburger converse and placing them atop photos of cats, inviting others to do the identical.

So, to anybody who has ever used a Richard Siken quote on a gifset, as a fic title, or as a caption on some fanart — and even made a humorous submit about his poetry — there’s a non-zero probability he has seen it. But don’t worry; as a result of judging by his angle, there’s additionally a non-zero probability he was delighted by it.