A collection of poems by Joan Cassidy Vayo (1930-2019) and a few others.
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 came across this poem in quite a roundabout way. A few days ago, it occurred to me that I don’t have stress dreams anymore. Really, that “I’ve got a final to take but didn’t even attend any of the classes and can’t find the classroom” sort of dream. Or, “it’s time to go on stage, and I really meant to memorize my lines, but hung around backstage playing cards instead.” Gone. All gone. Seven years ago. What a coincidence;…
What’s that out in the woods? Farmer Gary is so patient with my ignorance of all things nature. “Sumac,” he replied. “It’s a shrub.” The leaves were orange last week. Now they’re red. Mom had something to say about sumac back in 2005: What Red What red returns in Autumnin sumac dogwoods the sugar maples We follow itin hills and hollowsthe ponds reflecting The color calls in days alive and readyin this reign of red ~ joan vayo ~ 25…
As the calendar rolls into the tenth month of the year, the trees in our backyard are just beginning to turn golden and orange. And so, I went looking for a poem from Mom. She wrote this in 1950, early in her junior year at St. Joseph College in Hartford. Ever-Green Follow me, Sunberry,Mine is the rootThat steps into oceansWith one white foot. I hold a moonstone:A boon for the childWho sings in the jungleAnd never grows wild. Here is…
One hundred years ago, Grandpa Vayo was counting down the days until he married. He’d already moved to Paducah, Kentucky, and started his new job in advertising. He even authored a daily poetry column, Songs of Life, in The Paducah Sun newspaper. I wonder if he warned Grandma (his betrothed, Lucie Plante) how often her new surname would be misspelled and mispronounced. After all, “Vayo” rhymes with “mayo.” Sometimes, the condiment won out: This poem of Grandpa’s caught my eye…
Thanks to my second-cousin Mark, I just came upon a dozen or more poems Grandpa Vayo wrote shortly after he relocated to Paducah in 1926. He was the new Advertising Manager at the J.A. Rudy & Sons department store. Grandpa must have been so lonely! Paducah, Kentucky, is far away from Brewer, Maine. And this was a century ago. It was months before Grandma traveled all those miles to marry him on Thanksgiving Day. A poet, musician, and artist, Grandpa…
Right now, our “Feels Like” temperature is just two degrees short of triple digits. And it’s September! I’ve always been an indoor cat, so there’s really nothing for me to complain about, as long as the air conditioning holds out longer than this heat wave. Here’s a poem Grandpa Vayo wrote a century ago. It was published in the Paducah Sun on August 27, 1926. To me, it feels as miserable as the weather. Pessimism The still-born day breaks in…
Mom and Dad had distinctly different sleep patterns. Dad was the early-to-bed, early-to-rise type. I wondered what type of feathered friend an official Early Bird might be. Judging from the above picture, maybe a goose? Mom, on the other hand, loved to stay up late. She was the ultimate Night Owl: Reading, chatting with her adult children when they visited, even writing poetry: Warm Where You Were The early riser leaves meto a later hour You crest in morningwhile I…
It was always a treat to visit Grandma and Grandpa Cassidy when we were growing up in the 1960s. The drive to New Haven, Connecticut, took about 2.5 hours. Sometimes we’d stop at a breakfast diner and Dad would cough up a few nickels for the booth’s jukebox so we could play a song or two. Most often it would be On Top of Spaghetti, that old classic. It was always a thrill when Dad started pointing, “There it is…
This one hurts. My first view of Dolly Parton was on a TV commercial in the 1960s. She and Porter Wagoner were pitching Breeze detergent. Free towels – collect ’em all – especially the one that was huckleberry blue. Living in New England, I’d never heard an accent like that before. It made me laugh. Huckleberry blue. And just to prove that everything is available online, here’s Miss Dolly: Much will be said in the coming days about Dolly Parton….
My brother Dave continues to delve into his storage box of childhood memories. Some are delightful, others bring a tear. This one makes me cringe. It’s a poem from the literary annual our high school produced each spring. Either I didn’t give it a title or there wasn’t room for one … so let’s call it “The Terrible Teens.” This is from 1975, my junior year. P.S. I really couldn’t care less about “our team” winning or losing. But it…