Customer Reviews

Beautiful Signor

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A very close friend of mine, having just recently heard Cyrus Cassells read some of these poems, recommended I read this book. Since she is a rather astute and stringent critic and rarely recommends books of verse, I bought the book a few days later. Having just completed it, I can see why she was so impressed. Cassells' BEAUTIFUL SIGNOR is a collection of love poems composed in the style of the Troubadour, where the term lyric is ever true-these poems are the songs of a devotee. Cassells' descriptions are exacting, his metaphors fresh, interesting. But always there is the physical obsession of love, and this lover of details gives us a poetry that is both beautiful and sharp. In an age where gay love poetry borders on smut, how wonderful to find poems such as these: so quiet, so sensual, so finely-crafted. Cyrus Cassells' first book, THE MUD ACTOR, was a selection of the 1982 National Poetry Series and his second, SOUL MAKE A PATH THROUGH SHOUTING, was awarded the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. //C. Dale Young, Associate Editor of NEW ENGLAND REVIEW.

Cyrus Cassels other books of poetry (The Mud Actor & Soul Make a Path through Shouting) are both exquisite books of poetry - books that deserve all the attention they received by the prize-granting organizations. In reading Beautiful Signor, I initially felt that Cassels had made his first misstep - too erudite a vocabulary and sensuality without substance. The first concern, vocabulary, was justified at points. The second concern proved to be unjustified. As one progresses through the book, one discovers that the sensuality has substance - it is the sensuality of love as in the Song of Solomon or of Medieval "Bride of Christ" poetry or of Rumi's "Beloved". Cassels does not step outside his 20th century experience nor does he claim to be a mystic - rather he writes of the sensual pleasure that points towards, gives hints of, the relationship of poet to the transcendent.

Having read to the end, I could then reread the earlier poems in a much different light - and for the second reading, this is vintage, excellent Cyrus Cassels. He is a contemporary poet everyone with an interest in contemporary poetry should know.