Cassidy, Carol

Alice Caroline Coates Cassidy was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1906. She lived in Tokyo until 1913 when the family moved to Vancouver. She took her first year at the University of British Columbia in 1925-1926, and then took a teacher training course at the Provincial Normal School in 1926-1927. Returning to the University of British Columbia from 1927-1930, she studied under Dr. Sedgewick, Frederick Wood, Philip Child and Thorlief (Tuli) Larsen. She was Secretary of the Letters Club when Roy Daniells was president. Graduating with an Arts 30 degree, she married a fellow student, Eugene Haanel Cassidy, on 24 May 1930. Shortly afterwards, they left Canada for Japan where they lived in various locations from 1930-1938. With the advent of war, the family returned to Canada after a six month stay in Honolulu.
During the years in Toronto, 1938-1945, Carol Cassidy began to use her maiden name, and thereafter signed herself Carol Coates. In 1945, she arrived in New York, and lived above the Rudolf Steiner School on 79th Street. She traveled to England in 1947 to study High School teaching methods at the Steiner School housed in Michael Hall, Kidbrooke Park, Forest Row, Sussex. Having completed a teacher training course, she taught at the Steiner School in Edinburgh from 1949-1950. After 1951, Carol Coates remained in England until her death in 1994.
Carol Coates' poetry is deeply influenced by Japanese Hokku. She wrote many short pieces, some comprising just one or two lines, aimed at crystallizing a scene or atmosphere. The earliest extant copy of her poetry is dated 1929. On her return to Canada another small publishing venture resulted in The Return and Selected Poems, which was printed in Toronto in 1941. The most commercially successful collection of her poetry was Invitation to Mood issued by The Ryerson Press in 1949. Single poems were printed in various anthologies in the 1950s. "First Flight" was included in The Book of Canadian Poetry (1943) and in Creative Living: Five (1954). "Light," "Country Reverie," "Choral Symphony Conductor," and "The Circle" were published in the anthology Canadian Poetry in English (1954). In the 1970s, her poems were published in various poetry magazines and in the anthologies printed by the Camden Poetry Group, of which she was an active member.