Sign-In
Cart
More Than Peace and Cypresses
Paperback
Publisher Price: $19.00
ISBN13: 9781556592140
Publisher: Copper Canyon Press
Published: Oct 1 2004
Pages: 144
Weight: 0.37
Height: 0.34 Width: 5.58 Depth: 9.02
Language: English
Cyrus Cassells' fourth volume of poetry is an elegiac book of heroes, a lyric homage to the artistic fathers who taught him the truth-or-bust beauty of passion transformed / into sheer compassion.
In the wake of his father's death, Cassells returned to Italy, France and Spain, countries that nurtured him as a young writer, to investigate the sources of his inspiration. Vincent Van Gogh, Cesare Pavese, Eugenio Montale, Attilio and Bernardo Bertolucci, and GarcÃa Lorca are among those invoked and revisited in order to brace Cassells through his mourning, and to serve as touchstones in his search for the meaning of gallantry and quest for courage and expression.
Throughout his travels--and especially while contemplating flamenco culture--Cassells experiences the juxtaposition of mourning with unanticipated gusts of love and eroticism. Lush Andalusian-based poems emphasize the present's power for surprise and renewal, while his elegies are ecstatic, erotic and sometimes comic. Questing and elemental, elegantly lyrical, More Than Peace and Cypresses arcs beyond grief to celebrate the fleeting majesty of our lives.
From Way of the Duende
The day mind gone, Lord,
and all the stringencies,
the day's bright yokes, the day's heavy
bridles of status:
flamenco as an impassioned
celebration of night,
of duende, of mystery's
warrens and arabesques--
Romans, Carthaginians, phantom
Moors wander through the redemptive,
incantatory dancing--
Cyrus Cassells' previous books have earned the William Carlos Williams award, a Lambda Book Award, and a selection as Best of the Year by Publishers Weekly. He teaches at Southwest Texas State University and lives in Austin, Texas.
Also in
General Poetry
Dante's Vita Nuova, New Edition: A Translation and an Essay
Pitavy, Francois
Alighieri, Dante
Paperback
Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse (by the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature)
Carson, Anne
Paperback
The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos (by the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature)
Carson, Anne
Paperback
Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera (by the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature)
Carson, Anne
Paperback
Sounding the Seasons Enlarged Edition: One Hundred and Ten Sonnets for the Christian Year
Guite, Malcolm
Paperback
Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way
Lao Tzu
Le Guin, Ursula K.
Paperback
A Bowl of Goodness: Nourishing Poems with a Side of Soup, Celebrating Community, Friendship, and Resilience
Jackson, Major
Hardcover
Ariel: The Restored Edition: A Facsimile of Plath's Manuscript, Reinstating Her Original Selection and Arrangement
Plath, Sylvia
Paperback