Living Witness: An Interview with Cyrus Cassells

Since the publication of his first volume of poetry, The Mud Actor (1982), Cyrus Cassells has become known for the twin themes of beauty and trauma that permeate his work. [...] Cassells's works often take a celebratory tone: his 1997 volume Beautiful Signor adopts the troubadour tradition to depict a love affair between two men unfolding across Europe, and even his renowned collection Soul Make a Path Through Shouting (1 994) is never satisfied with mere recounting of tragedy; rather, the poet's witnessing voice becomes a means toward reclaiming the wounds of the past and returning agency to those who have suffered, revealing hope in its least-expected dwellings.