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.
From 1952 to 1954, Cassity was drafted and stationed in Puerto Rico. 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, 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. His papers are at Emory University.
Awards
Georgia Author of the Year Award from the Georgia Writers Association.
Levinson Prize for Poetry, for Devils and Islands
Michael Braude Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
Ingram Merrill Foundation Award
National Endowment for the Arts Grant
Works
"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.
"Crystal but not crystal ball". The New Criterion. November 2006.
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.
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.
Devils & islands: poems. Ohio University Press. 2007. ISBN 978-0-8040-1102-0.
Verse plays
Silver Out of Shanghai (1973)
The Book of Alna (1985)
Anthologies
Leon Stokesbury, ed. (1999). The made thing: an anthology of contemporary Southern poetry. University of Arkansas Press. ISBN 978-1-55728-579-9.
John Hollander, David Lehman, eds. (1998). The Best American poetry, 1998. Scribner. ISBN 978-0-684-81453-7.CS1 maint: Uses editors parameter (link)
Joseph Parisi, Stephen Young, eds. (2002). The Poetry anthology, 1912-2002. Ivan R. Dee. ISBN 978-1-56663-468-7.CS1 maint: Uses editors parameter (link)
Criticism
"Hapax: A Book Review". Cortland Review. May 2007.
Herbert A. Leibowitz, ed. (1994). "Double Dutch". Parnassus: twenty years of poetry in review. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-06577-6.
Ploughshares
"Deep Depression in Key West". Ploughshares. Fall 1983. Archived from the original on August 28, 2007.
"U-24 Anchors off New Orleans 1938". Ploughshares. Fall 1983. Archived from the original on September 9, 2007.
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.”
