Voodoo Libretto - by Tim Seibles (Paperback)

About the Book

"In a language that is both frank and emotionally charged, this book wrestles with issues of family, race, religion, sexuality, and, more generally, the journey from innocence to hard-hearted experience. The poems, at times, disagree with one another in terms of tone and perspective, but this further clarifies the complexity of coming to grips with all that's inscribed in the American story. To grow up in a particular neighborhood, city, or country is to be all but blind to the many defining characteristics of the place, which seem natural as the sky"--

Book Synopsis

Voodoo Libretto is in many ways a book of memories, a chronicle of both the personal and the political sensibility of a black baby-boomer. Driven by a restless and wide-ranging imagination, the poems are sometimes humorous, sometimes deadly serious, sometimes erotic, sometimes mystical, and occasionally all of these things at once.

Review Quotes

Fast Animal is a collection of poems that reminds us,
with every powerful breath, of our common humanity. Tim Seibles is a poet of
extraordinary sensitivity. His images are luminous--almost unbearably vivid--evocations
of the world around us, past and present. These are narratives of hard-earned
wisdom, exhilarating discovery, sly humor and defiant subversion, from
recollections of first loves to the desire to punch a certain former president.
Few poets can write about a kiss with such delicate precision, or capture with
such immediacy the fear and courage of an African-American man "sitting in a
park/ in Virginia holding a white woman's hand." Seibles is, above all, a
praise-poet. The "Ode to My Hands" is a particularly joyous celebration,
reminiscent and worthy of Neruda. May there be odes to Tim Seibles. May there
be praise for Tim Seibles. May we all learn from this poet what he didn't know,
and then knew.

--Martín Espada

In Fast Animal, Tim Seibles
has reached a new level of sophistication and emotional depth. His tone has
nuances that are so subtly and seamlessly woven together that laughter and
sorrow are often present in the same poem. Built like one single sustained
song, this book is alive with music, ardor and wit that flow in utterances that
are uniquely his and his alone. But in Fast
Animal there is also a new urgency and tender wisdom that speak to--and
about--"the great storm/ each man each/ woman walks/ as if beneath/ a second
sky."

--Laure-Anne
Bosselaar, The Hour Between Dog and
Wolf and A New Hunger

About the Author

Tim Seibles was born in Philadelphia in 1955. He has received fellowships from both the Provincetown Fine Arts Center and The National Endowment for the Arts. His collection, Fast Animal was a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award and winner of the Theodore Roethke Memorial Prize for Poetry. His poems have appeared in numerous literary journals including Beloit Poetry Journal, Black Renaissance Noire, Rattle, Shenandoah, Callaloo, New Letters, Poetry, and The Massachusetts Review. He spent a year as Poet in Residence at Bucknell University and he recently completed a two-year stint as Poet Laureate of Virginia. A former a former faculty member of Old Dominion University's English Department and MFA in Creative Writing Program, Tim lives in Norfolk, Virginia, where he continues to teach for the Muse Community Writing Center. He has also led workshops for Cave Canem, The Writers Hotel, the Minnesota Northwoods Writers Conference, and the Palm Beach Poetry Festival. A thoroughly engaged ambassador for poetry, he presents his work nationally and internationally at universities, high schools, cultural centers and literary festivals. He has been a featured author in the Vancouver International Writers Festival in Vancouver Canada, in the Calabash Festival in Treasure Beach, Jamaica, and in the Poesia en Voz Alta Festival in Mexico City. Tim Seibles is the author of eight previous books of poetry.