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Fast Animal
This collection by African American poet Tim Seibles explores a range of poetic form, including lyric, ode, narrative, and mystical. Like a "fast animal," the poet's voice can swiftly change direction and tone as he crisscrosses between present and past.
Built like one single sustained song, Fast Animal is alive with music, ardor, and wit that flow in utterances that are uniquely [Seibles'] and his alone."—Laure-Anne Bosselaar, author of The Hour Between
From "Delores Jepps"
It seems insane now, but
she’d be standing soaked
in schoolday morning light,
her loose-leaf notebook,
flickering at the bus stop,
and we almost trembled
at the thought of her mouth
filled for a moment with both
of our short names. I don’t know
what we saw when we saw
her face, but at fifteen there’s
so much left to believe in…
Tim Seibles, who teaches at Old Dominion University, is the author of six previous books, including Body Moves and Hurdy-Gurdy. His poetry has been featured in Best American Poetry 2010. Seibles has been the recipient of an NEA grant for poetry and Open Voice award.
Built like one single sustained song, Fast Animal is alive with music, ardor, and wit that flow in utterances that are uniquely [Seibles'] and his alone."—Laure-Anne Bosselaar, author of The Hour Between
From "Delores Jepps"
It seems insane now, but
she’d be standing soaked
in schoolday morning light,
her loose-leaf notebook,
flickering at the bus stop,
and we almost trembled
at the thought of her mouth
filled for a moment with both
of our short names. I don’t know
what we saw when we saw
her face, but at fifteen there’s
so much left to believe in…
Tim Seibles, who teaches at Old Dominion University, is the author of six previous books, including Body Moves and Hurdy-Gurdy. His poetry has been featured in Best American Poetry 2010. Seibles has been the recipient of an NEA grant for poetry and Open Voice award.
- GenresPoetry
90 pages, Paperback
First published January 24, 2012
About the author
Tim Seibles
25 books48 followersTim Seibles, born in 1955, is an American poet and professor. He is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently, Buffalo Head Solos (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2004). His honors include an Open Voice Award and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center.
His poems have been published in literary journals and magazines including Callaloo, The Kenyon Review, Indiana Review, Ploughshares, Electronic Poetry Review, Rattle, and in anthologies including Verse & Universe: Poems About Science and Mathematics (Milkweed Editions, 1998) and New American Poets in the 90's (David R. Godine, 1991).
Seibles was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and earned his B.A. from Southern Methodist University in 1977. He remained in Dallas after graduating and taught high school English for ten years. He received his M.F.A. from Vermont College in 1990. He is a professor of English and creative writing at Old Dominion University, as well as teaching in the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing and teaching workshops for Cave Canem. He lives in Norfolk, Virginia.
His poems have been published in literary journals and magazines including Callaloo, The Kenyon Review, Indiana Review, Ploughshares, Electronic Poetry Review, Rattle, and in anthologies including Verse & Universe: Poems About Science and Mathematics (Milkweed Editions, 1998) and New American Poets in the 90's (David R. Godine, 1991).
Seibles was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and earned his B.A. from Southern Methodist University in 1977. He remained in Dallas after graduating and taught high school English for ten years. He received his M.F.A. from Vermont College in 1990. He is a professor of English and creative writing at Old Dominion University, as well as teaching in the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing and teaching workshops for Cave Canem. He lives in Norfolk, Virginia.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
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May 23, 2024This won a National Book Award back in the day (a.k.a. 2012) but really, anyone who reads realizes book awards are not a great indicator. Sometimes you concur, sometimes scratch your head.
In this case, somewhere in between. I couldn't tell you if it's the BEST poetry collection of '12, but it's pretty good, esp. if you like villanelles and odes (four of the former, three of the latter). Personally I prefer the ode, but then rhyming is still guilty until proven innocent (when I don't much notice it, which is always a good sign).
If you're one of those readers who holds poetry itself guilty until proven innocent, you'll be happy to hear that Seibles lands squarely in Camp Approachable (where applications from any poetry that doesn't require explanation or learn'd astronomers is accepted).
Sample poem:
Ode to My Hands
Five-legged pocket spiders, knuckled
starfish, grabbers of forks, why
do I forget that you love me:
your willingness to button my shirts,
tie my shoes—even scratch my head!
which throbs like a traffic jam, each thought
leaning on its horn. I see you
waiting anyplace always
at the ends of my arms—for the doctor,
for the movie to begin, for
freedom—so silent, such
patience! testing the world
with your bold myopia: faithful,
ready to reach out at my
softest suggestion, to fly up
like two birds when I speak, two
brown thrashers brandishing verbs
like twigs in your beaks, lifting
my speech the way pepper springs
the tongue from slumber. O!
If only they knew the unrestrained
innocence of your intentions,
each finger a cappella, singing
a song that rings like rain
before it falls—that never falls!
Such harmony: the bass thumb, the
pinkie's soprano, the three tenors
in between: kind quintet x 2
rowing my heart like a little boat
upon whose wooden seat I sit
strummed by Sorrow. Or maybe
I misread you completely
and you are dreaming a tangerine, one
particular hot tamale, a fabulous
banana! to peel suggestively,
like thigh-high stockings: grinning
as only hands can grin
down the legs—caramel, cocoa,
black-bean black, vanilla—such lubricious
dimensions, such public secrets!
Women sailing the streets
with God's breath at their backs.
Think of it! No! Yes:
let my brain sweat, make my
veins whimper: without you, my five-hearted
fiends, my five-headed hydras, what
of my mischievous history? The possibilities
suddenly impossible—feelings
not felt, rememberings un-
remembered—all the touches
untouched: the gallant strain
of a pilfered ant, tiny muscles
flexed with fight, the gritty
sidewalk slapped after a slip, the pulled
weed, the plucked flower—a buttercup!
held beneath Dawn's chin—the purest kiss,
the caught grasshopper's kick, honey,
chalk, charcoal, the solos teased
from guitar. Once, I played
viola for a year and never stopped
to thank you—my two angry sisters,
my two hungry men—but you knew
I just wanted to know
what the strings would say
concerning my soul, my whelming
solipsism: this perpetual solstice
where one + one = everything
and two hands teach a dawdler
the palpable alchemy
of an unreasonable world.
—Tim Seibles
In this case, somewhere in between. I couldn't tell you if it's the BEST poetry collection of '12, but it's pretty good, esp. if you like villanelles and odes (four of the former, three of the latter). Personally I prefer the ode, but then rhyming is still guilty until proven innocent (when I don't much notice it, which is always a good sign).
If you're one of those readers who holds poetry itself guilty until proven innocent, you'll be happy to hear that Seibles lands squarely in Camp Approachable (where applications from any poetry that doesn't require explanation or learn'd astronomers is accepted).
Sample poem:
Ode to My Hands
Five-legged pocket spiders, knuckled
starfish, grabbers of forks, why
do I forget that you love me:
your willingness to button my shirts,
tie my shoes—even scratch my head!
which throbs like a traffic jam, each thought
leaning on its horn. I see you
waiting anyplace always
at the ends of my arms—for the doctor,
for the movie to begin, for
freedom—so silent, such
patience! testing the world
with your bold myopia: faithful,
ready to reach out at my
softest suggestion, to fly up
like two birds when I speak, two
brown thrashers brandishing verbs
like twigs in your beaks, lifting
my speech the way pepper springs
the tongue from slumber. O!
If only they knew the unrestrained
innocence of your intentions,
each finger a cappella, singing
a song that rings like rain
before it falls—that never falls!
Such harmony: the bass thumb, the
pinkie's soprano, the three tenors
in between: kind quintet x 2
rowing my heart like a little boat
upon whose wooden seat I sit
strummed by Sorrow. Or maybe
I misread you completely
and you are dreaming a tangerine, one
particular hot tamale, a fabulous
banana! to peel suggestively,
like thigh-high stockings: grinning
as only hands can grin
down the legs—caramel, cocoa,
black-bean black, vanilla—such lubricious
dimensions, such public secrets!
Women sailing the streets
with God's breath at their backs.
Think of it! No! Yes:
let my brain sweat, make my
veins whimper: without you, my five-hearted
fiends, my five-headed hydras, what
of my mischievous history? The possibilities
suddenly impossible—feelings
not felt, rememberings un-
remembered—all the touches
untouched: the gallant strain
of a pilfered ant, tiny muscles
flexed with fight, the gritty
sidewalk slapped after a slip, the pulled
weed, the plucked flower—a buttercup!
held beneath Dawn's chin—the purest kiss,
the caught grasshopper's kick, honey,
chalk, charcoal, the solos teased
from guitar. Once, I played
viola for a year and never stopped
to thank you—my two angry sisters,
my two hungry men—but you knew
I just wanted to know
what the strings would say
concerning my soul, my whelming
solipsism: this perpetual solstice
where one + one = everything
and two hands teach a dawdler
the palpable alchemy
of an unreasonable world.
—Tim Seibles
October 25, 2012
It is evident from these poems that Tim Seibles has had a full life. I wasn't surprised to find that this is his eighth book of poems because so many inside this volume are what I would call memory poems - girls he had crushes on, friendships that have survived adulthood, etc. There are also some entertaining villanelles and a surprising number of well-fashioned rhyming poems. Hardly anyone writes rhyming poems anymore, but they really work here.
The poems I connected with the most have to do with politics, particularly considering the current political climate (we are about two weeks from election day!). Tim Seibles does not mince words particularly when it comes to his disregard for particular politicians. "Vendetta 2006" is really great:
"...I have held
my rage on a short
leash like a good,
mad dog whose bright
teeth could keep
the faces of our enemies
well lit...."
"Punching Villanelle for the W, 2005" should be read out loud for full effect, but the last stanza is whimsical:
"If I could kiss Life on the lips I'd love Her till she wheezed
And then I'd buy the world a Coke and dump it in the street
We fumble all the days we get and then they give us gout
But first let's meet the President and slug him in the mouth"
Many of the poems do not end in periods. Some of them do. When they don't, it makes me feel like maybe the issue inside of them is ongoing. Or maybe the idea isn't fully formed. I'd love to know his reasoning for that absence as it will probably bother me for a while.
I'll end with my other favorite from this volume: "Love Poem."
"...Our veins
mapped together for awhile:
We have traveled so much
of the territory between us
and still there is a long, long way.
Is this what love is?"
The poems I connected with the most have to do with politics, particularly considering the current political climate (we are about two weeks from election day!). Tim Seibles does not mince words particularly when it comes to his disregard for particular politicians. "Vendetta 2006" is really great:
"...I have held
my rage on a short
leash like a good,
mad dog whose bright
teeth could keep
the faces of our enemies
well lit...."
"Punching Villanelle for the W, 2005" should be read out loud for full effect, but the last stanza is whimsical:
"If I could kiss Life on the lips I'd love Her till she wheezed
And then I'd buy the world a Coke and dump it in the street
We fumble all the days we get and then they give us gout
But first let's meet the President and slug him in the mouth"
Many of the poems do not end in periods. Some of them do. When they don't, it makes me feel like maybe the issue inside of them is ongoing. Or maybe the idea isn't fully formed. I'd love to know his reasoning for that absence as it will probably bother me for a while.
I'll end with my other favorite from this volume: "Love Poem."
"...Our veins
mapped together for awhile:
We have traveled so much
of the territory between us
and still there is a long, long way.
Is this what love is?"
November 14, 2014
Interspersed with witty, sometimes angry, villanelles and poems about the vampire-slayer, Blade, Tim Seibles' FAST ANIMAL is a poetry collection for poetry readers who crave the song in their poem. The author remembers the kisses and early steps into love in homages to the young girls of his youth and he faces the elephant in the room: the threat any young black man faced if he so much as held a white girl's hand in a country with citizens who still waved a Confederate flag. Seibles knows that, while sorrow contains sadness, sorrow flows in deeper channels, in runnels that never run dry. These are love poems for adults and poems about how racism haunts us all.
March 13, 2014
I'm not comfortable with the descriptor "African American poet" plastered all over for this guy. Isn't it a lot like "Asian correspondent Trish Takanawa"?
Maybe he signed off on it and maybe it's just in my world that that special mention is distasteful, but when a writer is defined by their race, I think of these sorts of lines:
She asks why we always
read books about black people.
(I spare her the news she is black.)
That's from a poem by Sapphire. As far as I'm concerned, inelegant, granfallooning, and condescending authors like Sapphire can keep the special designation. If they feel marginalized, what can you do?
But I don't think Tim Seibles needs to be put in some separate category. In "Last Poem About Race" he writes,
He goes on in that poem:
Taken out of the context of the poem and the rest of the book, those lines might seem a little aggressive, but when I finished this book, one phrase kept going through my head. I couldn't remember if it was from the book or if it was something I had extrapolated. I went looking for it and found it early on. I think it's as good a summation of the book as any: "You can't know what you're becoming.
You can't know, because it's not given to us to know what we are, what we're made of. We can think we're built on history, but we can't pinpoint anything for sure, despite trying very hard to. We don't even know where we are right now. A lot of his poems talk about how he ought to have been aware of his blackness growing up, but that so much else got in the way. He knows there is history to be dealt with, but he doesn't seem comfortable deciding either what that history is or how best to go about it. Those who adhere to militant philosophies probably regard that uncertainty as weakness. But it's only weakness if it's feigned. If it's sincere, it's integrity, and that's the exact opposite of weakness.
I get that I don't get to determine when a thing is specially defined, but I find "African American poet" to be an unhelpful dichotomy in this case.
Maybe he signed off on it and maybe it's just in my world that that special mention is distasteful, but when a writer is defined by their race, I think of these sorts of lines:
She asks why we always
read books about black people.
(I spare her the news she is black.)
That's from a poem by Sapphire. As far as I'm concerned, inelegant, granfallooning, and condescending authors like Sapphire can keep the special designation. If they feel marginalized, what can you do?
But I don't think Tim Seibles needs to be put in some separate category. In "Last Poem About Race" he writes,
. . . white people have done so much
to so many and get 'pretty tired
of hearing about it.' I'm not
trying to be mean. I've got
some white blood in my veins -
and really, whiteness is just a shadow
of its former self, but still, I'm kinda
scared, confused about what to do
with History . . .
He goes on in that poem:
It must be a riddle
being white, knowing and not knowing what's
what . . .
Taken out of the context of the poem and the rest of the book, those lines might seem a little aggressive, but when I finished this book, one phrase kept going through my head. I couldn't remember if it was from the book or if it was something I had extrapolated. I went looking for it and found it early on. I think it's as good a summation of the book as any: "You can't know what you're becoming.
I hear my voice
coloring, filling in
and I feel sure
the way a seed
feels sure
shoving a root
into black dirt: you
can't know
what you're becoming
You can't know, because it's not given to us to know what we are, what we're made of. We can think we're built on history, but we can't pinpoint anything for sure, despite trying very hard to. We don't even know where we are right now. A lot of his poems talk about how he ought to have been aware of his blackness growing up, but that so much else got in the way. He knows there is history to be dealt with, but he doesn't seem comfortable deciding either what that history is or how best to go about it. Those who adhere to militant philosophies probably regard that uncertainty as weakness. But it's only weakness if it's feigned. If it's sincere, it's integrity, and that's the exact opposite of weakness.
I get that I don't get to determine when a thing is specially defined, but I find "African American poet" to be an unhelpful dichotomy in this case.
April 10, 2016
Man this is a good book of poems. Seibles has a way of talking about teeth, about young lust, about the sad things in the world that anger and that we live compassionately though.
Oh, yeah, and Blade. The Daywalker.
I had the pleasure of seeing him read live and although the page does not resonate like his voice, the book still resounds.
Oh, yeah, and Blade. The Daywalker.
I had the pleasure of seeing him read live and although the page does not resonate like his voice, the book still resounds.
April 6, 2021
This is great collection of poetry; it was the first I've read by Tim Seibles and I will be reading more. He is the former poet laureate of Virginia, where I reside, and now I see why. Some great poems in here, in truth some I just did not get into, most of those were in Section II. Overall, I think "The Last Poem About Race" may be a stand-out for me:
(an excerpt): "... but still, I'm kinda
scared, confused about what to do
with History while I'm sitting in a park
in Virginia holding a white woman's hand.
I never want to think being American
is impossible, but the truth is
some silly mot#$@$@&as still fly
Confederate flags and maybe it's all
too much for any one man."
(an excerpt): "... but still, I'm kinda
scared, confused about what to do
with History while I'm sitting in a park
in Virginia holding a white woman's hand.
I never want to think being American
is impossible, but the truth is
some silly mot#$@$@&as still fly
Confederate flags and maybe it's all
too much for any one man."
September 24, 2020
Fabulous. Consistently powerful and warm throughout. My favorites are the ones about Blade and the villanelles. Love me some villanelles.
February 6, 2012
When I first red Seibles' Hurdy Gurdy, I needed to write a review of it all those years ago. I feel similarly about Fast Animal: it's musical, it's funny, it's frank, it's heart felt, it's ambitious, it's got duende coming out its ears. Seibles sings the songs that make crooners swoon--his love poems, his poems of innocence lost with a speaker looking to find some scrap of it still in the linty pockets of memory because it's necessary make me shake my head. This is a lovely book. Damn straight.
March 22, 2013
Haven't read much poetry in recent years, but the NYT review of this piqued my interest and so I picked this up. Really enjoyed it; very modern in its sensibility and its subjects. The author is a contemporary of mine and his writing of growing up as a young black man in Philadelphia in the 1970's is very evocative. Although many of the poems are about less mundane issues, like the Blade the vampire slayer. As a Buffy fan, I definitely appreciated that! This has spurred my interest in poetry once again and for that I thank Mr. Seibles.
November 8, 2014
This is a solid book, but a few of the poems read as filler. Still, there is enough here to keep the reader's attention, and Seibles is a master of his craft. I am constantly caught by the ease of his language, the way he slips a metaphor into his lines so that it doesn't stand out an announce itself, but instead works with the poem. I'm also constantly caught by the verbs he chooses and the unique perspective they illuminate of the world. Any fan of poetry will not be disappointed by this book.
September 12, 2013
After reading this in bits and pieces, and hearing Tim read from this book several times, I finally read it cover to cover and it was beautiful, powerful, taut with language, song, and swagger. Gorgeous.
April 10, 2013
Closer to 3.5 stars for me, but "Ode to My Hands" is delicious. And "The Last Poem about Race" is just about perfect.
April 14, 2013
Beautiful poems, exploring different forms and different issues (often race). the series of poems examing Blade as a metaphor for African Anerican experience was an unexpected delight.
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October 26, 2013Loved it!!
May 17, 2026
Poignant, funny, surprising, sweet. A little bit of crudeness I could’ve done without. But the Blade series of poems blows me away so thoroughly every time, I think it’s my favorite series of narratively linked poems I’ve ever read.
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February 9, 2022Siebles can make me laugh, cry, and want to overthrow white patriarchy all in one poem...
March 3, 2024
Seibles has rhythm, flow, and meaning. This is a surprisingly powerful book.
March 24, 2013
Fast Animal mixes three distinct types of poems: updatings of traditional forms like the ode and villanelle; an allegorical sequence focusing on Blade, half-vampire, half-human (loosely black and white); and poems about the discovery of sexuality amidst the complications of race in the early 1970s. The book's structured to intersperse the types and I may be missing something about the deeper resonances, but I found myself gravitating to and re-reading the more personal poems: 4 a.m., Terry Moore, Dawn, Delores Jepps, Allison Wolf, Donna James. In those poems, the experience is both structured by race, because it's part of who the persona is, and absolutely convincing as an encompassing engagement with teen sexuality. Thematically, the Blade poems are sharp commentaries on the contradictions of contemporary American culture, but the metaphor didn't add a lot for me.
February 20, 2015
It goes without saying that Seibles has a lot going for him - he does masterful work with the short line, plays charmingly with form, and the Blade poems are just plain cool. I'm left waiting for a lot of these poems to come back around to their initial point, though; Seibles has great confidence in following associative logic off to interesting places, but it doesn't always feel contained. Also, the level of womanizing and lack of interiority, roundness, humanity, etc. in the women that turn up in these poems as objects of sexual fantasy is pretty disappointing, especially since I get the sense that I'm supposed to find the speaker's recounting of his youthful dalliances to be charming.
December 23, 2012
I heard the poet at a reading and his poems take on a new life when read aloud, that's more exciting than when read on paper. Still, the authenticity of emotion, the genuine sense of nostalgia and the daring to be justifiably sentimental is hard to deny and is best to yield to because it works, it really works!
November 30, 2013
Seibles brings a nice mixture of poems and forms: a look back at his young loves, a fine set of vampire poems, a few villanelles with an urban beat, through it all a beat of mortality. Well worth reading. work; these brought
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February 3, 2013lovely poems
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews