Cyrus Cassells

Cyrus Cassells in 2004. Courtesy Knockout Literary Interviews.

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

Life

Cassells was born in Dover, Delaware and grew up in the Mojave Desert north of Los Angeles. He 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 M.F.A. in writing program, and lives in Austin.

He has had poems published in literary journals and magazines including Ploughshares Indiana Review, AGNI, Boston Review, and Callaloo.

Recognition

Cassells 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.

Awards

• 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship
• 2019 NAACP Image Award Finalist for Outstanding Work of Literature-Poetry for The Gospel according to Wild Indigo
• 2019 Texas Institute of Letters Helen C. Smith Memorial Award finalist for The Gospel according to Wild Indigo.
• 2018 Balcones Prize finalist for The Gospel according to Wild Indigo
• 2012 Balcones Prize finalist for The Crossed-Out Swastika
• 2005 NEA Literature Fellowship in Poetry
• 1997 Lambda Literary Award for Beautiful Signo
• 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
• 1981 National Poetry Series Prize for The Mud Actor

Publications

• The Mud Actor. New York: Holt, Rhinehart and Winston, 1982.
• Soul Make a Path Through Shouting. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 1994.
• Beautiful Signor. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 1997.
• More Than Peace and Cypresses. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2004.
• The Crossed-Out Swastika. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2012.
• The Gospel according to Wild Indigo. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 2018
• Still Life with Children: Selected Poems of Francesc Parcerisas (translator). Nacogdoches, Texas: Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2019.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.

Cyrus Cassells

Poetry Breaks Cyrus Cassells Reads "The Dreams"

Audio / video

• Passwords : Cyrus Cassells on Salvador Espriu (cassette). New York: Poets House, 2000.
• Cyrus Cassells: A Reading March 6, 1996, in the Modern Languages Auditorium. Tucson, AZ: Tucson Poetry Center, 1996.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of U.S. poets

External links

Poems

• Cyrus Cassells profile and 1 poem at the Academy of American Poets
• Cyrus Cassells b. 1957 at the Poetry Foundation

Audio / video

• Cyrus Cassells at YouTube
• Cassells discussing and reading his translations of Catalan poet Francesc Parcerisas, Center for the Art of Translation
• Cyrus Cassells at Amazon.com

About

• Texas State University > MFA Faculty
• Texas State University > Rising Star: Cyrus Cassells Continues to Form Cultural Legacy as “A Poet of Witness By Amy Francisco
• An interview with Cyrus Cassells at Knockout Literary Interviews