Janine Pommy Vega
Janine Pommy Vega | |
---|---|
Born | February 5, 1942 |
Died | December 23, 2010 | (aged 68)
Occupation(s) | Writer, poet |
Notable work | Poems to Fernando; Tracking the Serpent; The Green Piano |
Janine Pommy Vega (February 5, 1942 – December 23, 2010) was an
Early life
Janine Pommy was born in Jersey City, New Jersey.[1] Her father worked as a milkman in the mornings and a carpenter in the afternoons.[2] At the age of sixteen, inspired by Jack Kerouac's 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.[2]
Career
She worked as a waitress and wrote Beat-inspired experimental poetry. In December 1962, she married the Peruvian painter
In the 1970s and 1980s Vega traveled widely, trekking in the Himalayas and living in Peru, Colombia, and Bolivia, including two years as a hermit on the Isla del Sol in Lake Titicaca on the Bolivian-Peruvian border, where she completed Journal of a Hermit (1974) and Morning Passage (1976).[1][2] Tracking the Serpent: Journeys to Four Continents (1997) chronicles her 1980s travels to centers of ancient matriarchy.[2]
In addition to her own books of poetry, the last of which was The Green Piano (2005),[2] Vega was widely anthologized, including in City Lights Pocket Poets Anthology and Women of the Beat Generation.[3] She also toured with a band called Tiamalu, performing in English and Spanish.[3]
Teaching
Vega taught in schools in English and Spanish through arts in education programs including
Later life and death
From 1999, Vega lived with poet Andy Clausen. On December 23, 2010, she died at home in Willow, New York, of a heart attack.[2][1]
Awards
She won two Golda Awards, the second for The Green Piano, and was awarded many grants, including an annual grant from the New York State Council on the Arts for her work in prisons through Incisions/Arts.[4]
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)[5]
References
- ^ a b c d e Hunt, Ken (February 22, 2011). "Obituary: Janine Pommy Vega: Beat poet and close associate of Corso, Ginsberg and Orlovsky". The Independent.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Grimes, William (January 2, 2011). "Janine Pommy Vega, Restless Poet, Dies at 68". The New York Times. Archived from the original on June 11, 2013.
- ^ a b c d "Janine Pommy Vega". Teachers & Writers Collaborative. Archived from the original on February 10, 2007.
- ^ Grants. Janine Pommy Vega. Retrieved May 23, 2022.
- ^ Books. Janine Pommy Vega. Retrieved May 23, 2022.
External links
- Website
- Janine Pommy-Vega (1942-2010): Valery Oişteanu, "The Drum Circle for Janine Pommy Vega".