John Hayes - Requiescat in Pace

This is to post a belated public farewell to a dear friend and colleague, John Hayes.  I "met" John in the early years of this blog, and some of you may remember his eclectic blog, Robert Frost's Banjo.  A musician as well as a poet, some years ago John and his partner wrote and performed on the movie track a musical score for Nell Shipman's silent film The Grub-Stake (1923) which I covered in this previous post.

Most recently, John published a three-volume book set of poetry, which I posted about on my New England Travels blog here.  Another volume of poetry will be published by Askance Publishing posthumously.  He was overjoyed at the contract and the accomplishment even as he bravely faced rapidly declining health.  A gentle man of extraordinary perspective, he faced his mortality with grace and gallantry.

For many years he was also my proofreader of my books, and I will miss his friendship.  Unlike most of the dear friends I've gratefully come to know through this blog, I actually was delighted to have met John in person.  He had been living on the West Coast, but on a trip to Boston to visit his mother, he kindly made arrangements to visit me in western Massachusetts, and we went to lunch.  

I read his poems from time to time and I feel the comfort of his big heart, his intellect, and his spirituality.  He has left us in his poetry a precious gift: himself.

Here is his obituary as published in The Oregonian.

John Hayes Obituary

John (Jack Hayes, his pen name) entered the light of heaven July 12. Born in 1956 to Elizabeth (Atkinson) and John Hayes Sr. in Bellows Falls, Vt., Jack was a warm, loving man with a generous, kind spirit. He received his BA in English from UVM and his MFA in Poetry from UVA and had a lot of passions, including music, baseball, and Tai Chi, but poetry was his calling. He published 11 books of poetry, most recently Prayer Wind (Askance), and has one more collection slated for publication posthumously. In life, as in his poems, John saw beauty in the ordinary and the unordinary, often in nature. He shared music that he loved, played with, and taught both guitar and ukulele.
In 2018, John married his true love, Sandy Pullella. Besides her, he leaves behind her family; his sister, Naomi (Mort) Rosenberg; niece, Jessie; nephew, Ethan; their children; several cousins; and his beloved dog, Chloe; and cat, Curious.
John felt enormous gratitude to the Taoist Tai Chi Society, where he practiced in Portland, Ore. for many years. He developed lifelong friendships with two nuns from the Marymount Hermitage in Mesa, ID and also felt deeply connected to his editor and friend, Sheila Graham-Smith.
Thank you to the teams of Kaiser Permanente Hospice and Palliative Care, Portland, Ore., OHSU, and the Alpha One Foundation. In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to Kaiser Hospice, the Alpha One Foundation, or the Marymount Hermitage. John's body has been donated to the OHSU Body Donation Program. Mass will be at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church 7600 N. Hereford, Portland, July 28, 2024, at 10:30 a.m. 

Published by The Oregonian from Jul. 22 to Jul. 28, 2024.