About Ralph Pomeroy
Ralph Pomeroy (1926–November 18, 1999) was an American poet. He attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Illinois. At eighteen, he had already published poems in “Poetry” magazine, which was one of the leading poetry magazines in America at the time. He pursued painting in Paris, France, in the 1940s, and then worked as an editor, art critic, curator and exhibiting artist in New York City. In the 1950s, he was active in San Francisco's poetry scene, although he was not a Beat poet. The New York Times published his poetry on five separate occasions in 1968 and 1969. He taught at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco in the late 1980s and '90s.Throughout his writing career he published essays, monographs, catalogs, three poetry collections and an illustrated book of poems with Andy Warhol entitled “A La Recherche du Shoe Perdu”. One of his books was about painter Theodoros Stamos. His friend, Edward Field, discusses his life in his book: The Man Who Would Marry Susan Sontag and Other Intimate Portraits of the Bohemian Era (2007, University of Wisconsin Press).
Many years later, he was stabbed in the chest by a “fag basher”, and also suffered a broken wrist while engaged in what a friend described as “S&M games with a trick.” Pomeroy died of cirrhosis of the liver in San Francisco in the fall of 1999.
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