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Janine Pommy-Vega manuscripts
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Held at: University of Delaware Library Special Collections [Contact Us]181 South College Avenue, Newark, DE 19717-5267
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the University of Delaware Library Special Collections. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
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.
Box 1: Shelved in SPEC MSS record center cartons
Purchase, 2002
Processed by Kevin Burke, January 2003. Encoded by Jaime Margalotti, June 2021.
People
Subject
- Publisher
- University of Delaware Library Special Collections
- Finding Aid Author
- University of Delaware Library, Special Collections
- Finding Aid Date
- 2021 June 23
- Access Restrictions
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The collection is open for research.
- Use Restrictions
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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
Collection Inventory
Includes all drafts for twenty poems, copies of the manuscript, galleys, correspondence with the publisher, and a review of the book from the
Woodstock Times. A copy of the book has been removed from the collection and cataloged separately by the University of Delaware Special Collections Library.Pommy-Vega's typed catalog of the material related to the composition and publication of
Morning Passage.Includes autograph and typed drafts with corrections of "Morning Passage," "Song on the Lake," "I Set My Heart on the Road To Find You," "Drought," and "Aurora," each arranged successively with latest version on top.
Includes autograph and typed drafts with corrections of "New Year's Crossing," "Sunset Under Clouds and Luminous," "Deepening Twilight, Wind From the North," "Jungle Vegetation," and "Return," each arranged successively with latest version on top.
Includes autograph and typed drafts with corrections of "Eclipse of the Archer Moon," "The Butterfly of Fire," "Dawn, a Turtle Dove," "Winter Solstice," and "Island Legend," each arranged successively with latest version on top.
Includes autograph and typed drafts with corrections of "Sitting in a Lantern House," Song in a Snowstorm," "Goodbye Again," "Birthday Cake," and "Song of Departure," each arranged successively with latest version on top.
Includes Pommy-Vega's original typed manuscript, the photocopy of the manuscript sent to the publisher, Maureen Owen of Telephone Books, and correspondence between the author and the publisher.
Includes carbon copy of TLS from Pommy-Vega to Maureen Owen regarding dedication and magazine credits for the book, Pommy-Vega's notes on cover art and layout, and the working copy of the manuscript.
(includes envelope)
Photocopy of a review of Morning Passage by John Eskow in the
Woodstock Times (14 Apr 77). Original shelved separately.Autograph and typescript drafts with corrections of the prose poem
Star Treatise, final draft dated 1973. Envelope addressed to Janine Pommy-Vega from Lita Hornick that apparently contained printed broadside version of the poem (postmarked 1980). Photocopy of broadside (original shelved separately).Includes drafts for the long poem
Journal of a Hermit and for other poems that were included in the second printing Journal of a Hermit &, manuscripts, correspondence with the publishers (Charles and Pamela Plymell of Cherry Valley Editions, Cherry Valley, New York), a work copy of the first printing used for proofing the second printing, and covers from the second printing.Pommy-Vega's typed catalog of the material related to the composition and publication of
Journal of a Hermit.Includes autograph and typed drafts with corrections of the first eleven sections of
Journal of a Hermit. Drafts for each section are arranged successively with latest version on top. Section II includes an undated letter from Carol Berg, apparently an editor at Center in Woodstock, New York, commenting on sections of the poem Pommy-Vega had submitted for publication.Includes autograph and typed drafts with corrections of sections twelve through twenty-two of
Journal of a Hermit. Drafts for each section are arranged successively with latest version on top.Includes autograph and typed drafts with corrections of "Poem to Pitt/ If That Is Your Name," "Junksick Dirge/Abandonment," "We Are All One," "Song in the Nightwind," "Song of the Soul to Itself on a Rooftop," each arranged successively with latest version on top.
Includes autograph and typed drafts with corrections of "Simplified Legend," "Poem to David, the Psalmster," "Birthday Poem," "Song of the Solitude Sleek-footed Bird," "Return to My Birthplace and First Sixteen Years/47th Street, Union City," each arranged successively with latest version on top.
Includes autograph and typed drafts with corrections of "Poem to the Viking Warrior Angel," "Song for Mad Marcus the Dark," "Eli the Collie," "La Puna," "Twenty-eighth Birthday," each arranged successively with latest on top.
Includes two Autograph Letters Signed from the publisher, Pamela Plymell of Cherry Valley Editions, Cherry Valley, New York.
Includes carbon copies of two Typed Letter Signed from Pommy-Vega to her publishers and autograph notes on revisions and publication details.
Autograph Letter Signed
Physical Description1 page
Autograph Letter Signed
Physical Description1 page
Autograph Letter Signed
Physical Description1 page
Autograph Letter Signed. Includes envelope.
Physical Description1 page
Autograph Letter Signed. Includes flyer for Maryland Writers Conference.
Physical Description1 page
Typed Letter Signed (copy)
Physical Description1 page
Autograph Letter Signed. Includes envelope.
Physical Description1 page
Typed Letter Signed (copy)
Physical Description2 pages
Autograph Card Signed
Typed Letter Signed
Physical Description1 page
Includes copy of first printing of
Journal of a Hermit used for proofing Journal of a Hermit &, layout mock-ups and cover for Journal of a Hermit &.Includes drafts of poems, versions of the manuscript and covers letters sent to Harper & Row, Kulcher Press (which published the book), and other presses, correspondence and other material related to publication.
Includes Pommy-Vega's catalog of materials related to the composition and publication of
The Bard Owl and an unaddressed Typed Letter Signed (copy) dated 13 Feb 81.Includes typed and autograph drafts with corrections of "Invocation," "San Francisco Shuffle," "Ranging the Headlands," "The Expected One," "Impressionists," "Gypsy Players," "Lunar Eclipse," "Roots Revisited." Drafts are arranged successively with final version on top.
Includes typed and autograph drafts with corrections of "Song for Aunt May," "Blues," "The Poet's Gown," "The Traveler," "Stargazer," "Tale of the Hunter," "Winter," "Song for the Lady." Drafts are arranged successively with latest version on top.
Includes typed and autograph drafts with corrections of "The Merchant Poet," "Song for My Father" (Parts I – VII), "Spring," "Leaving Town In a Hurry," "Song for Csar," "Panama Airport," "Trainride," "Little Song." Drafts are arranged successively with final version on top.
Includes typed and autograph drafts with corrections of "Exhortation," "The Empress," "The Lover," "The Regular," "The Poster," "The Birds," "The Hermit," "Serenade." Drafts are arranged successively with final version on top.
Includes typed and autograph drafts with corrections of "For the Bard Owl," "Promise of a Day," "Companion on the Path," "The Ritual," "Aer Lingus," "Preview," "Your Song," "Walker." Drafts are arranged successively with latest version on top.
Includes typed and autograph drafts with corrections of "Ring Fort," "Druid Theatre," "Jameson's Whiskey," "November Landscape," "Take on Your Poem," "Dracula's Imprint," "The Geminids," "Himalayan Air in the City." Drafts are arranged successively with latest version on top.
Includes typed and autograph drafts with corrections of "Document," "John Garfield's Favorite Song," "Eric Zamm Rides Again," "Aurora Borealis/Fourth of July," "Willow," "Yourself," "Equinox," "Where Are You?" Drafts are arranged successively with latest on top.
Includes typed and autograph drafts with corrections of "The Thaw," "Nocturne," "Peter, Your Poems," "March 30th, 1979," "Blue Hills at Dusk," "Temple Built in a Museum," "Home," "Re-entry." Drafts are arranged successively with latest version on top.
Includes cover letters by Janine Pommy-Vega and rejection notices by Houghton Mifflin Company, Princeton University Press, and The University of Massachusetts Press.
Corrected manuscript used for publication.
Includes typed manuscript of dedication by Paul Metcalf, a Typed Letter Signed from the publisher Lita Hornick, and autograph notes pertaining to the layout of the book and other matters.