| The Gospel According to Wild Indigo Contributor(s): Cassells, Cyrus (Author) |
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ISBN: 080933660X ISBN-13: 9780809336609 Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press OUR PRICE: $14.36 Product Type: Paperback Published: February 2018 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Poetry | American - General |
| Dewey: 811.54 |
| LCCN: 2017035952 |
| Series: Crab Orchard Poetry |
| Physical Information: 0.5" H x 6" W x 8.9" (0.45 lbs) 112 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Finalist for the Balcones Poetry Prize, 2018 Finalist for the Helen C. Smith Award for the Best Book of Poetry from the Texas Institute of Letters, 2019 Nominated for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literature in Poetry, 2019 Consisting of two dynamic song cycles, Cyrus Cassells's sixth poetry volume, The Gospel according to Wild Indigo, keeps the reader on edge with a timeless and beguiling feast of language that fuses together history, memory, and family. The first cycle, rooted in the culture of the Gullah people of Charleston and the Sea Islands, celebrates the resilience of the rice- and indigo-working slaves and their descendants who have forged a unique Africa-inspired language and culture. Set against a Mediterranean backdrop, the second cycle explores themes of pilgrimage, love, and loss, concluding with a pair of elegies to the poet's mother and the many men lost in the juggernaut of the AIDS crisis. Throughout, Cassells invites the reader to consider the duality of grief and love, as well as the shifting connections between past and present. Cassells's language is always striking, unpredictable, and beautiful, conjuring a world not only of "placid seagulls perched / in priest-gentle pines / like festive Christmas ornaments" but also one where "Death prevailed, / tireless as a forest partisan." His poems transport the reader across time, space, and language, searching constantly not just for empathy but also for the human spirit in its triumph, for "our human joy, / laced with an ageless grieving." |
Contributor Bio(s): Cassells, Cyrus: - Cyrus Cassells is the author of The Mud Actor, winner of the 1981 National Poetry Series Competition; Soul Make a Path through Shouting, nominee for the Pulitzer Prize and winner of the William Carlos Williams Award; Beautiful Signor, winner of the Lambda Literary Award; and TheCrossed-Out Swastika, finalist for the Balcones Prize for Best Poetry Book of 2012. He teaches at Texas State University in San Marcos. |
