Cyrus Cassells

Cyrus Cassells was the 2021 Poet Laureate of Texas. Among his honors: a 2023 Civitella-Ranieri Foundation fellowship; a 2022 Academy of American Poets Laureate fellowship to administer his statewide Juneteenth poetry project; a 2019 Guggenheim fellowship; the National Poetry Series; a Lambda Literary Award; two NEA grants; a Pushcart Prize; and the William Carlos Williams Award. His 2018 volume, The Gospel according to Wild Indigo , was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award, the Helen C. Smith...See more

Cyrus Cassells was the 2021 Poet Laureate of Texas. Among his honors: a 2023 Civitella-Ranieri Foundation fellowship; a 2022 Academy of American Poets Laureate fellowship to administer his statewide Juneteenth poetry project; a 2019 Guggenheim fellowship; the National Poetry Series; a Lambda Literary Award; two NEA grants; a Pushcart Prize; and the William Carlos Williams Award. His 2018 volume, The Gospel according to Wild Indigo , was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award, the Helen C. Smith Memorial Award, and the Balcones Poetry Prize. Still Life with Children: Selected Poems of Francesc Parcerisas, translated from the Catalan, was awarded the Texas Institute of Letters' Soeurette Diehl Fraser Award for Best Translated Book of 2018 and 2019. To The Cypress Again and Again: Tribute to Salvador Espriu , combining translations, poetry, and memoir in homage to Catalan Spain's most revered 20th century writer, was published in 2023. Cassells was nominated for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Criticism for his film and television reviews in The Washington Spectator . He teaches in the MFA program at Texas State University, where he received a 2021 Presidential Award for Scholarly/Creative Activities and was named a 2023 University Distinguished Professor. See less