Juanita Casey

Juanita Casey
Born	Joy Barlow 1925 England
Died	24 October 2012 Okehampton, Devon
Occupation	Poet, Writer, Artist, Potter, Horse Breeder, Horse Trainer, Zebra Trainer
Nationality	British

Juanita Casey (10 October 1925 – 24 October 2012) was a poet, playwright, novelist and artist as well as a horse and zebra trainer and breeder.

Biography

Casey was born in 1925 in England and her mother an Irish traveller, Annie Mahoney, died when she was born. Her father Jobey Smith who was of English Romany stock, left her when she was a year old and she was adopted and raised in Southampton. She was given the name Joy Barlow. She remained in close contact with her extended family, especially an uncle.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

Casey was educated at four boarding schools but eventually left them for the circus aged only thirteen. By sixteen she was working on the land in Dorset, during the Second World War, where she met and married farmer John "Crusoe" Fisher. With him she had a son William in 1947. They moved to Penzance and lived and worked on boats. Casey began selling her artwork through local studios. It was here she met the Swedish sculptor Sven Berlin whom she later married in 1953. With him she had another son, Jasper. Together they lived and worked within a growing artists colony in the St Ives area until Berlin became ostracised due to a biography he wrote and the couple moved to the New Forest. Here Casey had close ties to her travelling family and lived in caravans until moving into a home on land belonging to a local farmer.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

Casey then inherited money which allowed her to become a horse breeder and buy Home Farm in Emery Down. She trained horses for the circus at this point. It was here she met the Irish groom and journalist Fergus Casey whom she later married in 1971. Her divorce came through in 1963 which was also the year Sheba, her daughter with Fergus, was born. She began a pattern of travel between Ireland and the UK at this time and began writing her first poems.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

Fergus was drowned in Ireland leaving Casey to raise her daughter and she moved to Sneem in County Kerry. By now she had novels and poetry published and was working as a potter. She was a regular in the Listowel Writers Week. But in 1974 she returned to the UK where she joined Roberts' Circus as Horsemaster. After this last move to Okehampton, Devon, Casey didn't move around as much and it was here she died on 24 October 2012.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

Bibliography

Poetry

• Hath the Rain a Father? (London: Phoenix Hse. 1966)
• Horse by the River and Other Poems (Dublin: Dolmen Press 1968), 2 ills. by author
• Eternity Smith & Other Poems (Dublin: Dolmen 1985)

Novels

• The Horses of Selene (Dublin: Dolmen Press; London: Calder & Boyars 1971; NY: Grossman 1972; rep. 1985)
• The Circus(Dublin: Dolmen Press 1974; Nantucket, Mass: Longship Press [1974]) Dolmen stock held by Colin Smythe

Plays

• Stallion Eternity (BBC produced play)
• 30 Gnu Pence (The Abbey 1973)

Further reading

• Gordon Henderson, ‘An Interview with Juanita Casey’, Journal of Irish Literature (Sept. 1972), pp. 41–45;
• A Grab-bag of Juanita Casey, Journal of Irish Literature, X, 2 (May 1981);
• Freda Brown Jackson, ‘Juanita Casey’, in Dictionary of Literary Biography (Detroit: Broccoli Clark Book 1983).

References