Janine Pommy Vega (February 5, 1942 – December 23, 2010) was an American poet associated with the Beat Generation.

Early life

Janine Pommy was born in Jersey City, New Jersey. Her father worked as a milkman in the mornings and a carpenter in the afternoons. At the age of sixteen, inspired by Jack Kerouac On the Road, she went with a friend to the Cedar Tavern in Greenwich Village, where they met Gregory Corso; in 1960, after graduating as valedictorian of her high school class, she moved in with Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky. She also toured with a band called Tiamalu, performing in English and Spanish.

Works

  • Poems to Fernando (1968)
  • Journal of a Hermit (1974); repr. with Under The Sky
  • Morning Passage (1976)
  • Here at the Door (1978)
  • The Bard Owl (1980)
  • Skywriting (1988)
  • Apex of The Earth's Way (1984)
  • Drunk on a Glacier, Talking to Flies (1988)
  • Island of the Sun (1991)
  • Threading the Maze (1992)
  • Red Bracelets (1993)
  • Tracking the Serpent: Journeys to Four Continents (1997)
  • The Road to Your House Is A Mountain Road (1995)
  • The Walker (2003)
  • Mad Dogs of Trieste: New & Selected Poems (2000)
  • The Green Piano (2005)
  • She also published in literary journals such as Earth's Daughters.

References

  • Website
  • Janine Pommy-Vega (1942-2010): cyber tombeau by poet Pierre Joris, including the opening poem of Poems to Fernando and a homage-poem by Valery Oişteanu, "The Drum Circle for Janine Pommy Vega".