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Joan Pepitone

Joan Pepitone
Joan Pepitone

Joan Murray-Pepitone was born in Saint Francis, Kansas in 1932, and moved to Wichita with her parents during World War II. Joan went through Robinson Jr. High and East High School with the group that included Beat poet Michael McClure, artist / film-maker Bruce Conner, and painter / Microcosmos founder Corban LePell.

She was active in the Wichita counter-culture scene during the early 1960s and read her poetry at Moody’s Beanery along with such local writers as Charlie Plymell and Jim Mechem. She was the heroine “Fanchon” of several of Mechem’s novels. These works of Joan’s help to fill in the seldom seen feminine side of Beat period poetry, which reflects a distinctly different point of view from that of its male contemporaries.

She had two children, Kathy and Tony. She died at the age of 45, on September 1, 1977.

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  • Artists
    • Fantastic Fifties Part 1
    • Fantastic Fifties Part 2
    • The Magic Locals
  • Days of Wrath
  • Allen Ginsberg
  • Publications
    • 1952 – Provincial Review
      • Contributors
      • Blue Monday by Don Duncan
      • Bruce Conner – Three Poems
      • Dave Haselwood
      • David Wright
      • Jim Lyle
      • Lee Streiff
      • Loren Frickel
      • Mike McClure
      • Robert Seyendal
    • 1954 The Sunflower Literary Review
    • 1958 Mikrokosmos
    • 1958 The Worlds We Made
    • 1959 The Poets Corner # 2
    • 1960 The Locked Man
    • 1961 The Ten Days of My Dream
  • Memories
    • Jim Lyle: “The Basement Apartment” and Other Pieces
    • Lee Streiff – New Year’s Eve 1954
    • Patricia (Riveron) Lee: “Enrique Riveron”
  • Party scenes
  • Beat Scene at WSU
  • Wichita Vortex poetry and prose
    • Celeste Hammond
    • Ann Arnold
    • Charles Plymell
    • Dave Haselwood
    • David Wright
    • Gerry Hammond
    • Glenn Todd
    • Irma Wassell
    • Jane Curry
    • Joan Pepitone
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