The purpose of this paper is to investigate the images and roles of women in James Joyce`s poetry. The women`s images as "govwing artists," male personae in Chamber Music and Giacomo Joyce are all ambivalent ones. Similary, the male personae in Stephen Hero and A Portrait of the artist as a Young Man see women as ambivalent beings. The same women who receive the fragrant homage due to holiness also change to prostitutes who inspire burning sexual desire in the works. I suggest that those ambivalent images of women are originally derived from those in the above poems, in the sense that the images of women are presented as virgins and prostitutes in both genres. I also feflect back on Joyce`s poetry from the perspective of Dubliners, Cxiles, and Ulysses. There are some close relationships among the works in that the images of women are ambivalent and the male personae are invariably in the grip of confused identities. Proclaiming their proud independence, the male heroes nevertheless rely on wornen`s role for physical nurturance and psychological support. Likewise, the male personae in Chamber Music and Giacomo Joyce are dependent on women`s service for physical desire and psychological comfort. Moreover, most of the male personae in Joyce`s works own their creative writing ability to women. The ambivalent images of women are primary sources which inspire them to plot and write. The ambivalent ones can be said to play great roles in all of Joyce`s works. Accordingly, I conclude that women`s images in his poetry are worth studying, in that they make the readers anticipate his succeeding works.