To The Cypress Again and Again

Cyrus Cassells, a masterful poet and translator, has created a unique and powerful hybrid translation/poetic homage to Catalunyas great twentieth-century poet Salvador Espriu. The lions share of To the Cypress Again and Again is a supple translation of Esprius first book, Sinera Cemetery, along with selections from other collections. A reader will come away with a poignant sense of Esprius beloved seaside landscape as well as, in Esprius words, his precious Catalans/ mysterious gold: a language that was suppressed and forbidden under Francos regime. Cassells has given us an enduring gift to the memory of Espriuthrough his personal introduction, his loving translations, followed by his own Espriu-inspired poems that evoke an alphabet of cypresses and sea-light, thus transmuting Esprius elegiac voice into Cassellss own.