Helen Marie Casey

Portland’s Compromise: The Colored School 1867-1872
This investigative work takes a first look at racially-motivated educational decisions in the early days of Portland’s school system. The solution of a "separate School for the education of the Colored children of the District" was relatively short-lived.

Inconsiderate Madness
Helen Marie Casey’s powerful poems about a dark period of American history when people were hanged by zealots in the name of God are a necessary reminder for our contemporary world of how power combined with prejudice can persecute and ultimately silence voices. Casey chronicles the life of Mary Dyer who was hanged because of her Quaker faith.

Fragrance Upon His Lips
Capturing Joan of Arc in poetry is potentially as dangerous as riding onto a medieval battlefield. But Helen Marie Casey disproves the notion that one can’t create artfully with a story so full of its own natural artistry. Her treatment of the facts is principled, fresh, and unsentimental, but still allows her to see a fire’s hem rush across a bridge or notice a petty-thieving Burgundian pocket Joan’s precious spurs. Her warmly recommended Joan is a listener who harkens to the divine will until marching boots beneath her prison window make it hard to hear.