The Writer’s Block: A Video Q&A With Tim Seibles

At the end of June Tim Seibles came to City of Asylum Pittsburgh with Cave Canem, an African American poetry organization founded by Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady in 1996.

By day Seibles taught a workshop on Sampsonia Way; by night he took the stage at the Alphabet City Tent and read a selection of poems in his comic, heartfelt, inimitable style.

Before the reading, as Cave Canem fellows socialized in the street outside, Seibles sat down with Sampsonia Way to talk about his obsession with the erotic, getting into the poetic minds of characters like the vampire-hunter Blade, and why the United States government probably isn’t that interested in poetry.