Draft:Jim Casta

Jim Casta (1928-1982) was a Cuban poet, linguist and teacher. He was born in Havana but spent most of his adult life in his wife's native County Wexford, Ireland.

Biography
Casta was born in Havana in 1948. He moved to Ireland in the 1960s and married Helena Synnott from County Wexford where they settled for the rest of his life. They had one son, Carl, who now lives in Surrey, England. Casta was named Iago Acosta at birth but was known as Jim to many English-speaking visitors to Cuba and changed his name officially soon after moving to Ireland.

Casta studied linguistics and literature at Trinity College Dublin under Professor Diarmuid O'Muirithe who he assisted in the writing of his book on the Yola dialect of Forth and Bargy. He undertook significant independent research as part of his post-graduate studies at Trinity and gave guest papers and presentations at festivals and conferences on such diverse topics as James Joyce, Religion in Irish Modernist Literature, poetry of the Irish Independence movement and the work of Carl Jung.

Casta was a familiar face in local schools in County Wexford as a supply teacher for Spanish and English literature classes.

Notable Works
Casta published many poems in magazines during his lifetime. He was involved in the local theatre scene and assisted in the production of dozens of plays produced by local amateur theatre companies.

In 2016, two of his poems 'Jerome the Girrafferty' and the epic novel-poem 'Murpheonix' were published in the Martrydem collection by the Shanakee Press.

'Murpheonix’ tells the story of the 1798 rebel leader Father Murphy of Wexford in a fresh and controversial way. Evoking the parallel stories of Christ, Odysseus, and Casta himself, the poem was prepared for publishing by the book’s editor, James McDonald, who pieced it together from Casta’s notebooks and manuscripts which were provided by the poet’s family.

Death and legacy
Casta died tragically in 1982.