José Jesús Villa Pelayo

José Jesús Villa Pelayo (born November 6, 1962) is a Venezuelan poet, essayist, and lawyer. He is a prominent figure of the "Nueva Poesía" (New Poetry) movement in Venezuela, noted for a poetics of "gnoseological density" and "aesthetic bilingualism."

Born in Caracas, Villa Pelayo graduated in Letters from the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) in 1987. He studied under Cervantes Prize winner Rafael Cadenas. His thesis, the poetry collection Nueva York (1992), received an Honorable Mention from a jury including Cadenas. He also holds a law degree from Santa María University (1992).

His literary proposal distances itself from realism to focus on a symbolic and metaphysical lyricism. Critics such as Alexis Márquez Rodríguez and Gina Saraceni have highlighted his ability to restore the sacred character of the word through a "gnostic poetics." A defining feature of his work is "aesthetic bilingualism"—the use of interlinear verses in Spanish-English or Spanish-Portuguese, as seen in Mariana de Coimbra (1999) and Maraclea de Seforis (2024).

In 1991, his work was included in the Italian anthology Altri Termini (Naples), alongside authors such as Octavio Paz, Ted Hughes, and Edoardo Sanguineti.

• Una hiedra negra para Sashne (1990)
• Nueva York (1992)
• Mariana de Coimbra (1999)
• Antología 1985-2009 (2010) - Preface by Mercedes Franco.
• Elegía para un mago de Venecia (2016) - Winner of the Stefania Mosca National Literature Prize.
• Maraclea de Seforis (2024).