A collection of poems by Joan Cassidy Vayo (1930-2019).
A lyric poet, Joan (aka Mom) wrote poetry from her grade school years until just before her death at age 89.
Her work was published in Seventeen magazine, Yankee, America, and others. She self-published a collection of her poetry, titled when in the rain a snow.
Family blog posts tagged with Poems include her poems, plus writing from a few other family members.
I was really hoping to find out “turnabout is fair play” was coined by William Shakespeare. Alas, its earliest application may be lost to history, but Abraham Lincoln was an early user of the phrase, so we’ll keep it in play with today’s story. As you may recall, my father‘s entire life of home ownership was tortured by squirrels (see Nuts to you! from 2019). He and Mom loved to feed the birds in their many backyards, from Massachusetts to…
Mary Catherine Schmitt turned 16 on March 31, 1936. Her teacher sent her this note. A birthday greeting in verse, actually: Mary Catherine was a top student at Jasper High School here in Indiana. She was having a good month. Just a few weeks earlier, her name appeared twice in the local newspaper, showing her place in the sophomore class’s rankings. Here’s the Honor Roll announcement: Mary Catherine was the fourth born of the ten Schmitt children. Her father, Henry,…
Who’s afraid of poetry? Good question! Mom asked this half a century ago. The answers may well be the same today: Four Tell Who’s afraid of poetry?Not I, said the football player.I don’t understand it, butthe words are kind of pretty. Who’s afraid of poetry?Not I, said the busy housewife.I even write some. It’s not goodbut it makes me feel good. Who’s afraid of poetry?Not I, said the dilettante.I never was. But I don’t like this sharing;it’s getting to be…
Yesterday morning, what may well have been a murmuration of starlings came racing through our back woods like a blinding blizzard. I just happened to be perched in my comfy chair in the sunroom, with a wide-eyed panoramic view of the squall. It was wild! Farmer Gary later explained to me the birds are rather frantic this time of year, looking for food and a bit of warmth. They flew in from the northwest and crowded in the tree branches…
The mercury hit 57 today and may make it even higher tomorrow. That is what you call a January Thaw! Thing is, there’s nothing to thaw. No snow since last month, and even then, not much to brag about here in southern Indiana. No doubt that will change in the coming weeks and I’ll eat my words, crunching on icicles all the while. Growing up in western Massachusetts, we had a January thaw each year. The best part (next to…
Judging from Mom’s poem below, I’m guessing she and Dad had just returned from a trip to The Hemingway Home in Key West, Florida, when she wrote this: Picasso’s Cat whichever life it wasdiscarded broken to the boxthe nine were not exhausted in Hemingway’s housethe cat Picasso madeemerges whole on the high chestout of Mexicohe tops it like a santothe house guides and the garden cats below pay homage ~ joan vayo ~ January 31, 1996 There are numerous stories…
This poem didn’t appear until its subject matter reached 41 years old. Mom, God bless her and keep her, may well have taken till then to get a good night’s sleep! Solstice 1955 Our son slept in the circle of my armsthat winter afternoon we drovethrough little towns in Massachusettssnow fell on the streetsand in the toy storewhere the china stars were sold ~ joan vayo ~ August 13, 1996 Sorry, Harry – I guess Mom and I just gave…
On the sad anniversary of Sandy Hook and the day after the Brown University shooting, I’ll just leave this here: “AMERICAN GOTHIC – Nineteen-Sixties” ©1971 Joan Vayo. All rights reserved. Binoculars photo courtesy Alan Levine. Please subscribe here and we’ll send an email notice with each new story:
We all were prone to red cheeks in the wintertime. Even inside the house: One teacher in junior high loudly proclaimed I looked like one of the Campbell Kids when I arrived at school, winded, after bicycling to school. That last hill was long and steep. Had I not been still out of breath, I’d have sassed the bum. Mom loved the reds of winter, and wrote this poem a quarter century ago. Winter Red Clap for colorholly winterberrycome caps…
It’s been sitting on a shelf in our house’s only walk-in closet. Ah, priorities. Family archives are far more important than clothes and shoes. When Gary and I packed up Mom and Dad’s kitchen in 2021, most of the cookbooks went to Becky, Dave’s culinary daughter supreme. But one cookbook I remembered well from childhood. It was in a large ziploc bag, as the cover was no longer attached. That one, I took home. Dad had filled me in that…