Podcast Summary: Poetry Unbound

Episode: Cyrus Cassells — “Jasmine”
Host: Pádraig Ó Tuama
Release Date: January 19, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode of Poetry Unbound is a deeply immersive exploration of Cyrus Cassells’ poem “Jasmine.” Host Pádraig Ó Tuama unpacks the poem’s lush romanticism, sensory experience, and its resonance with memory and history. He guides listeners through the interplay of scent, story, and longing, connecting both the poem’s imagery and Cassells’ wider body of work.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

Evocative Power of Scent and Memory

• Personal Reflection [00:02]:
  • Pádraig opens by reminiscing about his time living in French-speaking Switzerland in his twenties. Memories are rekindled through tangible triggers—especially scents like pine, wild herbs, thyme, and wildflowers.
  • Quote:
    • “Tangible things like that transport me back in a second, back 30 years.” [00:02]
• He introduces “Jasmine” by Cyrus Cassells, immediately noting its sensory immediacy:
  • “These are the days of jasmine in Rome, when headlong, emboldened April has dissolved…” [00:41]

Lush, Romantic Language and Form

• The poem is structured in 23 lines—11 couplets and a final single line, capturing a reverie-like state.

• Pádraig describes the overwhelming romance of the language, pointing to its “rose-tinted glasses reminiscence… adjectives everywhere, building up in luscious, giving words.” [02:38]

• Example adjectives from the poem: “headlong,” “emboldened,” “joyous,” “sweet,” “steady,” “graffiti-laden,” “pallid,” “breeze-swept,” “enrapturing.”

  • Memorable Analysis:
    • "It’s almost like an editor might have said, maybe you could make this a little bit less romantic. And Cyrus Cassells has said, I’m making it more romantic.” [03:54]

The Communal and Intimate Power of Jasmine

• The scent of jasmine in the poem acts as a catalyst for connection and shared confidences among neighbors.
• Notably, the poem leads to a neighbor’s story:
  • “Even crone, glorious Daria, my terrace-loving neighbor, confides…” [06:18]
• Jasmine binds people in shared sensory experience and allows deeper stories to be shared.

Rich Metaphorical Layers

• Pádraig explores the poem’s striking metaphors:
  • “Jasmine, the elating moment’s shibboleth, the cool, enrapturing knight’s cavalry…” [06:42]
  • Shibboleth: a word whose pronunciation grants access—here, the scent “allows you into a heightened moment.”
  • Cavalry: military metaphor signifying a “fragrance, an overpowering fragrance, delicious and sensual.” [07:29]
• These metaphors elevate jasmine from mere scent to symbolic gatekeeper and transporter.

Narrative Shift and Generosity

• The poem transitions from solitary reminiscence to the wartime love story of Daria and Galliano:

  • “When Galliano came back from the front, his right hand was bandaged, but in his uninjured one… he held a fistful of jasmine he’d picked along the path to my door. How could I not become his wife?” [08:30]

• Pádraig highlights the music and connection in this closing anecdote, noting the poem’s unashamed celebration of how “love can hold things together.” [09:21]

Contextualizing the Poem: Cassells' Oeuvre

• The poem is from The Gospel According to Wild Indigo—a collection in two halves:

  • First: Uplifting Gullah culture, resilience, and survival amid brutality.
  • Second: Exploration of travel, transformation, and romance.
  • The book’s structure itself forms a “couplet” of resilience and romance.

• Notable companion quote from the collection:

  • “Who better to define freedom than a slave?” [11:05]

• Cassells is identified as an African-American poet, a translator, actor, and film critic.

  • Pádraig remarks that his poems often “unfold like a film” with deep empathy and a rich “emotional geography.” [11:35]
  • “He doesn’t deny… he just points to that which he knows will truly last.” [11:56]

Final Reading of the Poem

• Pádraig offers a second, uninterrupted reading of “Jasmine” (full poem at [11:57]), allowing listeners to fully experience its imagery and rhythm.

Notable Quotes

• On Sensory Memory:

  “Tangible things like that transport me back in a second, back 30 years.”
  — Pádraig Ó Tuama [00:12]

• On Poetic Lushness:

  “It’s almost like an editor might have said, maybe you could make this a little bit less romantic. And Cyrus Cassells has said, I’m making it more romantic.”
  — Pádraig Ó Tuama [03:54]

• On Jasmine as “Broadcast”:

  “This rich, fruity, flowery, gorgeous hair smell of jasmine. And the poem is so powerful because it makes everything be wrapped into the sweet, steady broadcast, that’s how he describes it, of jasmine.”
  — Pádraig Ó Tuama [05:08]

• On Empathy and Lasting Meaning:

  “He doesn’t deny… he just points to that which he knows will truly last.”
  — Pádraig Ó Tuama [11:56]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:02] – Pádraig’s opening reflection on memory and scent
• [00:40] – First reading of “Jasmine”
• [02:05] – Analysis of form and romantic language
• [06:18] – Introduction of Daria’s story
• [07:29] – Military and sensory imagery discussion
• [08:30] – Wartime love narrative: Daria and Galliano
• [09:21] – The poem’s message about love’s connective power
• [11:05] – Contextualizing Cassells’ work and themes
• [11:57] – Poem re-read for immersive experience

Memorable Moments

• The vivid description of how jasmine’s scent casts a “sweet steady broadcast”—a phrase that shifts “broadcast” from technology to nature, saturating the poem with atmosphere. [05:08]
• The tender conclusion: Daria’s recounting of Galliano’s return from war, wounded, yet carrying jasmine—a gesture binding suffering and new beginnings into an act of love. [08:30]
• The summing up of Cassells’ dual genius: “Romance and resilience and luscious sensuality with terrible brutality and humanity and inhumanity and memory and lived experience.” [11:26]

Summary Conclusion

Pádraig Ó Tuama’s gentle, insightful journey through Cyrus Cassells’ “Jasmine” reveals the poem’s power to evoke memory, fragrance, and romantic experience, while also connecting it to a broader context of survival, identity, and love. With both literary analysis and personal reminiscence, the episode invites listeners into an unapologetically lush and generous world—where poetry is both memory’s carrier and love’s witness.