Like the ceiling and wall to which the poet is lured, The Sistine Gaze dances between vision and fantasy in words, images, and metaphors that are muscular, tangible, sensuous, erotic, or at times cold and questioning. The poem's philosophic currents in rhythmic line and verse are meditations on existence in the swell and fall of activity, of changing lives. This ekphrastic epic is orchestral, impressionistic, thought provoking, and conversational. Indeed its raison d'ˆtre seems elegantly framed in an aphoristic line inviting us, `To balance life with death and venture bravely to be beautiful.' Poet and publisher Seamus Cashman founded the Irish literary publishing house Wolfhound Press in 1974 where he remained publisher until 2001. "Drawing together threads of the religious, philosophical, artistic, and technical, Cashman weaves an approachable and altogether human tapestry."--World Literature Today
