TIM SEIBLES


In-profile headshot of Tim Seibles.

Photograph by Jennifer Fish

Tim Seibles was the Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2016 to 2018. He is a former NEA fellow and Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center fellow. His seven books of poetry include Fast Animal, a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award and winner of the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize. This was followed by One Turn Around The Sun in 2017.  His latest collection, Voodoo Libretto: New & Selected Poems was released by Etruscan Press in 2022.

Maybe life is just a few names / swung into motion.  

Someone calls out, “Tim, how are you?”

I turn around hoping / someone can tell me.

I think it is often true that people approach poetry with rigid expectations—with a prejudice that may be analogous to the bigotry with which people often approach others who are not from their culture. Black poets do not examine the “Black experience” exclusively any more than White poets write exclusively about the White Experience, but so often African American poets find themselves most in demand during Black History Month, as if that is the only time their visions are relevant. On the other side of that equation, people of color will sometimes assume that a white poet (a white poem) has little or nothing relevant to say to them.

December 17, 2023

December 31, 2023