ABOUT CYRUS CASSELLS Cyrus Cassells’ six books are The MudActor, SoulMake a Path through Shouting, Beautiful Signor, More Than Peace andCypresses, The Crossed-Out Swastika, and The GospelAccording To Wild Indigo. His book of Catalan translations, StillLife with Children: SelectedPoems ofFrancesc Parcerisas, is due from Stephen F. Austin State University Press in April 2019. He’s a recipient of a Lannan Literary Award, a William Carlos Williams Award, and a Lambda Literary Award. ABOUT THE POEMS My six published books of poetry, multicultural and international in spirit, have been concerned with issues of justice, war, conscience, the healing of trauma, as well as the restorative power of romantic and erotic love. In addition to my study of French, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish, I have also been drawn, out of a sense of justice, to endangered languages and dialects, including Gullah, Hawaiian, and Catalan (callously banned from public use by Franco at the close of the Spanish Civil War). I strive hard to make my poetic language precise, musical, and memorable. As poet Ellen Hinsey once asserted, “poetry is an independent ambassador for conscience: it answers to no one, it crosses borders without a passport, and it speaks the truth.” With my poetry, I like to think ofmyself as an intrepid AfricanAmerican ambassador working freely and fearlessly in the world. Volume 8 No 1 - Page 37
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