Janine Pommy-Vega manuscripts

Collection

Identifier: MSS 0456

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The Janine Pommy-Vega manuscripts collection includes autograph and typescript drafts, galleys, and correspondence related to the publication of three of Pommy-Vega’s books: Morning Passage (1976), Journal of a Hermit (both the original 1974 edition, and the reprinting with new material published as Journal of a Hermit & in 1979), and The Bard Owl (1980). Also included are the manuscripts for and a printed copy of the broadside Star Treatise.

Dates

Creation: 1967-1980

Creator

Pommy-Vega, Janine (Person)

Language of Materials

Materials entirely in English.

Access Information

The collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Use of materials from this collection beyond the exceptions provided for in the Fair Use and Educational Use clauses of the U.S. Copyright Law may violate federal law. Permission to publish or reproduce is required from the copyright holder. Please contact Special Collections Department, University of Delaware Library, https://library.udel.edu/static/purl.php?askspec

Biographical Note

The American poet Janine Pommy-Vega was born in 1942 in Jersey City, New Jersey. During the early 1960s she moved to Greenwich Village, became acquainted with the Beat writers Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac, and married the Peruvian painter Fernando Vega. Following Vega’s death from a drug overdose in 1965, Pommy-Vega wrote and published her first book, Poems to Fernando, with City Lights Books in 1968. She traveled extensively in North and South America, and in Europe. An extended stay at Lake Titicaca in Peru resulted in the material for two of the books included in this collection, Journal of a Hermit (1974) and Morning Passage (1976).

Pommy-Vega published nine volumes of poetry over the course of her career. Beginning in 1975 she was involved with the New York Poets in the Schools program. She was also involved in poetry in the prisons programs and was a co-founder and coordinator for the poetry workshop at Sing Sing, the state prison at Ossining, New York. Pommy-Vega died in Willow, New York, in December 2010.

Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2011. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: The Gale Group. 2011. Retrieved January 5, 2023 from http://www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC.

Extent

1 linear foot (1 box)

Additional Description

Abstract

Autograph and typescript drafts, galleys, and correspondence related to the publication of three of American poet Janine Pommy-Vega’s books: Morning Passage (1976), Journal of a Hermit (both the original 1974 edition, and the reprinting with new material published as Journal of a Hermit & in 1979), and The Bard Owl (1980).