Cyrus Cassells

Cyrus Cassells (born 1957) is an American poet and professor.

Life and work
Cassells was born in Dover, Delaware, grew up in the Mojave Desert north of Los Angeles, and began writing poetry in high school. He graduated in 1979 from Stanford University with a degree in film and broadcasting, and landed a job creating poetry filmstrips in the film division of a publishing house, where he worked when Al Young called to tell him his manuscript had been selected for publication from the 1981 National Poetry Series competition. He has worked as a translator, film critic, actor, and teacher. Since 1998, he has taught poetry at Texas State University–San Marcos for the MFA in writing program, and lives in Austin.

Cassells' collection More Than Peace and Cypresses (Copper Canyon Press), and his fifth book, The Crossed-Out Swastika, (2010) were published by Copper Canyon Press. He has won many awards including a 1995 Pushcart Prize, the Lambda Literary Award, and the William Carlos Williams Award. He was nominated for the 1994 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for Soul Make A Path Through Shouting. He has had poems published in literary journals and magazines including Ploughshares Indiana Review, AGNI, Boston Review and Callaloo.

Recognition

 * 2005 NEA Literature Fellowship in Poetry
 * 1997 Lambda Literary Award for Beautiful Signor
 * 1997 National Poetry Series Prize for The Mud Actor
 * 1993 Lannan Literary Award - Poetry
 * 1994 William Carlos Williams Award for Soul Make a Path Through Shouting
 * 1992 Peter I.B. Lavan Younger Poet Award
 * 1986 NEA Literature Fellowship in Poetry
 * Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship

Publications

 * The Mud Actor (Holt, Rhinehart and Winston, 1982)
 * Soul Make a Path Through Shouting (Copper Canyon Press, 1994)
 * Beautiful Signor (Copper Canyon Press, 1997)
 * More Than Peace and Cypresses (Copper Canyon Press, 2004)
 * The Crossed-Out Swastika, (2010) Copper Canyon Press