Turner Cassity

Allen Turner Cassity (January 12, 1929 in Jackson, Mississippi – July 26, 2009 in Atlanta)[1] was an American poet, playwright, and short story writer.

Life

He was the son of Dorothy and Allen Cassity, and grew up in Jackson and Forest, Mississippi. He graduated from Millsaps College and Stanford University with a master's degree.[2]

Cassity was drafted into the United States Army and stationed in Puerto Rico from 1952 to 1954.[3] He attended Columbia University on the GI Bill, and received a master's degree in library science in 1955 and then moved to South Africa. He worked at the Robert W. Woodruff Library at Emory University, from 1962 to 1991,[4] and also taught poetry there. He also cofounded the Callanwolde Readings Program, which highlights poets and writers, with poet Michael Mott.

He is buried in Forest, Mississippi.[3] His papers are at Emory University.[5]

Awards

Works
  • Watchboy, What of the Night?. Wesleyan University Press. 1966.
  • Steeplejacks in Babel. D. R. Godine. 1973. ISBN 978-0-87923-070-8.
  • Yellow for Peril, Black for Beautiful. G. Braziller. 1975. ISBN 978-0-8076-0775-6.
  • The Defense of the Sugar Islands: a recruiting poster. Symposium Press. 1979.
  • Phaëthon unter den Linden. Iris Press. 1979.
  • Keys to Mayerling. Robert L. Barth. 1983. ISBN 978-0-941150-14-9.
  • The Airship Boys in Africa. Hendricks. 1984. ISBN 978-0-943764-01-6.
  • Hurricane Lamp. University of Chicago Press. 1986. ISBN 978-0-226-09615-5.
  • Lessons. Para Press. 1987. ISBN 978-0-941150-57-6.
  • To the Lost City, or, the Sins of Nineveh. R.L. Barth. 1989. ISBN 978-0-941150-74-3.
  • Between the Chains. University of Chicago Press. 1991. ISBN 978-0-226-09617-9. Turner Cassity.
  • The Destructive Element: New and Selected Poems. Ohio University Press. 1998. ISBN 978-0-8214-1221-3.
  • No Second Eden. Ohio University Press. 2002. ISBN 978-0-8040-1050-4.
  • "Crystal but not crystal ball". The New Criterion. November 2006.
  • Devils & islands: poems. Ohio University Press. 2007. ISBN 978-0-8040-1102-0.
  • "Four poems (published posthumously)". Able Muse, Tribute Issue. December 2009.
  • "Turner Cassity Reads at the Huntington Library, April 12, 2003 (video)". Able Muse, Tribute Issue. December 2009.

Verse plays
  • Silver Out of Shanghai (1973)
  • The Book of Alna (1985)

Anthologies

Criticism

Ploughshares

Reviews

Devils & Islands, Cassity's 10th collection, reinforces the image of the dapper Southerner as a satirist, and, in the words of National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Dana Gioia, '73, MBA '77, perhaps "the most brilliantly eccentric poet in America." [6]

References
  1. 'The New Georgia Encyclopedia Companion to Georgia Literature', edited by Hugh Ruppersburg, John C. Inscoe, 2011, page 75
  2. "Turner Cassity, 80, award-winning poet and Emory librarian". Ajc.com. 2009-08-11. Retrieved 2013-10-17.
  3. "Turner Cassity (1929-2009) | New Georgia Encyclopedia". Georgiaencyclopedia.org. 2007-03-17. Retrieved 2013-10-17.
  4. David Yezzi. "Turner Cassity". The Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 2013-10-17.
  5. Archived November 18, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  6. CYNTHIA HAVEN. "A Poet Fond of Stumps". Stanford Magazine.
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