Cyrus Cassells III
Cassells came to Texas State in 1998 and is a University Distinguished Professor of English.
He is recognized as one of the most impactful poets of contemporary times and was named the 2022 Poet Laureate Fellow by the Academy of American Poets. The Texas Legislature appointed him the 2021 Texas Poet Laureate. Some of his many awards and honors include a 2019 Guggenheim fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, the National Poetry Series, a Pushcart Prize, the Lambda Literary Award, the Lannan Literary Award, the William Carlos Williams Award, a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry nomination, a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism nomination and a NAACP Image Award in Poetry finalist.
Cassells is nationally and internationally renowned as an exceptional and insightful poetry and fiction writer, thoughtful critic and impactful translator. His award-winning work has been published in 10 books with three more in press, more than 30 anthologies and countless journals. He has presented worldwide in poetry readings, lectures, performances, films and exhibits. He is a prolific book, film and television reviewer, a cultural critic and the poetry editor of a monthly feature for The Washington Spectator, which nominated his work for the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism. His translations demonstrate his study of French, Italian, Japanese and Spanish—including the endangered languages and dialects of Gullah, Hawaiian and Catalan—and have twice received the Texas Institute of Letters’ Soeurette Diehl Fraser Award for Best Translated Book.
Cassells is known for approaching instruction with the intent to liberate students intellectually, emotionally and spiritually by fostering their dynamic relationship to art, creativity and language. He has created 10 new and innovative English and honors courses and supervised innumerable graduate theses through which several of his students have gone on to be National Book Award finalists and Pulitzer Prize in Poetry winners.
