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A lyrical "book of heroes" about the role of art, creation, and inspiration.
A trenchant search for beauty amidst a world ravaged by cruelty.
"Cassells is... a poet of conscience [and] above all a lyric poet whose alchemy makes beauty of bitterness." --Alicia Ostriker
Drawing from Greek mythology, children's rhymes, and African-American oral traditions, the author of Mud Actor brings his poetry inward, searching the voices of Guernica, Auschwitz, and Terezin to find evidence of probity and persistence.
"Taking his cue from the Civil Rights and Vietnam War era poets and songwriters who inspired him in his youth, Cyrus Cassells presents, in a new, full-on mode, his most breathtaking and risk-taking work to date: in the wake of the Stand Your Ground killing of his close friend's father, a frank, bulletin-fierce indictment of unraveling democracy in an embattled America, in a world still haunted by slavery, by countless battles, borders, and betrayals-adding new grit, fire, and luster to his forty-year career as a dedicated and vital American poet"--
The Mud Actor finds its most powerful images in the poems of childhood and in the moving poem, The Memory of Hiroshima . . . Cassells' ultimate testimony to the human spirit. The cumulative nature of the book is powerful, and allows us to agree with the poet at the end that 'Everything in life is resurrection'.
"The Gospel according to Wild Indigo, Cyrus Cassells's sixth volume of poetry, is comprised of two exhilarating song cycles and is his most intensely lyrical and ecstatic poetry to date"--
Awarded the Souerette Diehl Fraser Award for Best Translation of a Book from the Texas Institute of Letters Cyrus Cassells' vibrant translations grow on the page as though the essence of Francesc Parcerisas' work has also moved forward in a Janus-like fashion. These translations are not simply the same poems in a different language; Cassells has crafted new poetry. The gentle and delicate rhythms of Parcerisas have been contracted into shorter lines that explore sharper cadences whilst Cassells carefully maintains a sensitive continuity in the opening feet. This is poetry for the ear first and the page second, Cassells has stronger consonants at his disposal, a resource that he skilfully exploits. The ultimate product of his labours is a short collection of poetry that reads and feels like a work of English Literature, a sensation that is perhaps the highest compliment one may bestow upon a Literary Translation.
Black Nature is the first anthology to focus on nature writing by African American poets, a genre that until now has not commonly been counted as one in which African American poets have participated. Black poets have a long tradition of incorporating treatments of the natural world into their work, but it is often read as political, historical, or protest poetry--anything but nature poetry. This is particularly true when the definition of what constitutes nature writing is limited to work about the pastoral or the wild. Camille T. Dungy has selected 180 poems from 93 poets that provide unique perspectives on American social and literary history to broaden our concept of nature poetry and Af...
Malin Pereira's collection of eight interviews with leading contemporary African American poets offers an in-depth look at the cultural and aesthetic perspectives of the post-Black Arts Movement generation. This volume includes unpublished interviews Pereira conducted with Wanda Coleman, Yusef Komunyakaa, Thylias Moss, Harryette Mullen, Cornelius Eady, and Elizabeth Alexander, as well as conversations with Rita Dove and Cyrus Cassells previously in print. Largely published since 1980, each of these poets has at least four books. Their influence on new generations of poets has been wide-reaching. The work of this group, says Pereira, is a departure from the previous generation's proscriptive ...