Tim Seibles to Receive Saginaw Valley State University Poetry Prize

July 09, 2014

Tim Seibles

Old Dominion University faculty member and acclaimed poet Tim Seibles has racked up another accolade for his book "Fast Animal," which was a National Book Award Finalist in 2012.

This time, Seibles was chosen to receive the 13th Triennial Saginaw Valley State University Board of Fellows Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize.

The Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize is named after the late poet who won the 1954 Pulitzer Prize for "The Waking." SVSU has awarded the prize, since 1968, and past winners have included U.S. Poets Laureate Robert Penn Warren, in 1971, and Robert Pinsky, in 2008. The prize is made possible in part by a grant from the Michigan Humanities Council, an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities and includes a $10,000 cash award.

Seibles plans to visit SVSU during their community-wide Theodore Roethke Poetry & Arts Festival, Nov. 7-12. He will be honored at the Triennial Poetry Prize Celebration on Nov. 11, and plans to read from his collection of poems in addition to attending a number of other festival-related events.

An associate professor of English and creative writing at ODU, Seibles has been on the university faculty for 17 years and is an award-winning author of several collections of poetry in addition to "Fast Animal."

He recently appeared in Washington, D.C., at the Library of Congress, to read from the works of poet Countee Cullen as part of a series of events honoring influential American authors. See that story here.