It’s such a great feeling to think of Mom so enjoying a new (to her) author that she just had to pause her reading to write a poem in tribute to him.

Paul Horgan was a Pulitzer Prize-winning author (twice; both times for history) who leaped from genre to genre. From poetry and drama to novels and historical fiction, from biographies to children’s literature. Often his work centered around southwest America.

I read one of his books last month, from Mom’s collection of Christmas stories:

Mom was 41 when she “discovered” him and was so delighted, she just had to write about the experience:

Latecoming
To Paul Horgan, halfway through Whitewater

Late have I come to you, although your name
said something to me long before your words.
A title, then, and long ago:
a third-floor kitchen, a new husband,
and a newer baby. And the radio, like books,
my amulet those long and traveling times.
Almost the holidays; the season coming all
together with your name, The Saintmaker’s
Christmas Eve: a word about it on the radio.

And, like Willa Cather, whom I long delayed
because the Sisters thrust her on us like
some uniform, I have come late to you.
But as with her, the journey once begun, went on.
I have come late, but I have come to stay.
~ Joan Vayo June 10, 1971

Here are two other Horgan books from Mom’s collection:

Mom’s mention of Willa Cather (and the nuns) made me chuckle. I hadn’t thought of my mother as hitting her rebellious stage while still in school. She recommended Cather to me when I was no longer in a Catholic school uniform, but finishing up my first year of public high school. That was 1973, the summer of Willa Cather and Graham Greene.

Here’s a look at Mom in her high school uniform, circa 1947.

It warms my heart that Mom found a way to continue recommending authors, even after her passing.

“Latecoming” © 1971  Joan Vayo. All rights reserved.

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