Patricia Janus

Patricia "Pat" Janus (April 20, 1932 – June 9, 2006) was an American poet, artist, and educator.

Biography Born Patricia O'Brien to Thomas and Rose O'Brien, she was raised in New York City where she worked for a brokerage firm. She met John "Jack" Janus (1910-1991), whom she married in the early 1950s. Her husband went on to become a pharmacist, and his work eventually transplanted the family (which by then included two sons and one on the way) to Rochester, NY.

Her work appeared in numerous literary publications, including The Atlantic Monthly, Yankee, The National Catholic Reporter and American Poetry Review, and was anthologized in several volumes, including Summer Songs (2004), Knocking on the Silence (2005), and The Pinnacle Hill Review. Her collectionm Love in the Time of Anthrax, was released by FootHills Publishing in 2005. Her last volume is Synchronicity, published by FootHills in June, 2006.

Battling cancer herself for nearly a year, she died on Friday, June 9, 2006, at age 74, at Highland Hospital. The night before, she had given a reading to a full house at Barnes & Noble in Pittsford, NY for Synchronicity, a collection of poems spanning the years since 1970. The book had just been released that day.

She continued her work as a chaplain and nurse up until a few weeks before her death and was still working on a chapbook of poems about New Mexico.