Summer 2022 | Tim Seibles | Vol. 6, Iss. 1

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Welcome to The Fight & The Fiddle, a publication of the Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison University. Each issue gives you a 360-degree view of a Black poet, including an interview, new poems, a critical essay, and a writing prompt inspired by our featured poet.

Tim Seibles’ career as a poet spans over 4 decades. He is the author of seven collections of poetry, including Body Moves  (1988), Hurdy Gurdy (1992), Fast Animal (2012), and most recently Voodoo Libretto (2022). His poems have been published widely in journals and anthologies, including Best American Poetry. He has taught at Cave Canem, the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast MFA program, and at Old Dominion University, where he is a professor emeritus of English. Over the course of his career, Seibles earned a 1990 National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a 2012 National Book Award nomination, won the 2012 Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize, and the 2013 PEN Open/Josephine Miles Award, among other recognitions. From 2016-2018, he served as the Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

• • The Interview: Tim Seibles talks with The Fight & The Fiddle editor-in-chief, Lauren K. Alleyne about his poetics of humor and witness
    
  • Critical Essay: Dr. Cherise A. Pollard’s critical review, “Subversive Becoming” looks at the cultural context and craft  elements of Voodoo Libretto, Tim Seibles’ recently published New and Selected.
  • Poems: Read “Naive,” “The Last Black Cargo Blues Villanelle,” and “Movie” by Tim Seibles.
  • Writing Prompt: Can you write a poem that makes you laugh?

Photo by Joaquin Sosa
Cover Design by Robert Mott