Cyrus Cassells

Ambiguity, coupled with the authors usual stylistic elegance, leads to a certain distance and formality to some of these poems. Beautiful and closely observed, they are also strike the reader as being slightly aloof, perhaps a bit too perfectly poised. For the most part, however, the operative word throughout much of the poets’ highly regarded work, both here in More Than Peace and Cypresses and in his previous books, is ‘passion’. Cyrus Cassells poems are always filled with a high show more level of intensity and an almost sensual richness of language in describing the world. Readers of this collection may feel like echoing Cassells’ response to a flamenco dancer after reading this elegant work:

Ecstatic, in deference, you doff
your dapper hat
to the excelling boy,
as he moves in a masterly
ribbon around you. show less

If there are books out there written in two-line stanzas that should not be read then there have to be some out there that should be read, and this is one of them. Cassells shows excellent range of vocabulary and an ear for the characters whose personae he takes from poem to poem or sequence to sequence. Cassells manages to tie together these experiences into a cohesive and satisfying whole that could be compared with the treatment of the holocaust by Elie Wiesel. I didn't like the two-line show more stanza before but this books has certainly lightened my heart towards the form. show less

There was no way in this lifetime I was going to enjoy reading something I don't even understand.