Valerie Martínez
| Valerie Martínez | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | 1961 |
| Nationality | American |
| Ethnicity | Native American, Hispanic |
| Citizenship | US |
| Education | Vassar College, University of Arizona |
| Alma mater | Vassar College; University of Arizona |
| Genre | Poetry, Arts |
Valerie Martínez (born 1961) is an award-winning American poet, educator, arts administrator, and collaborative artist.
Valerie Martinez was born and raised in Santa Fe, New Mexico and descends from Tewa and Dine (Navajo) ancestors as well as the 16th century Spanish colonizers of the Southwest U.S. She left New Mexico in 1979 to attend Vassar College and received her B.A. in English/American Literature in 1983. She received her M.F.A. in Creative Writing/Poetry in 1989 from the University of Arizona.
Before returning to New Mexico to settle permanently in 2003, Martinez traveled widely in the U.S. and Europe as well as Mexico, Israel, Japan, Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa. For three years (1993-1995) she lived in Swaziland where she taught English in elementary and middle schools. Since 2003 she has traveled to Peru, Germany, Belgium, Russia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia. Her travels have had a significant impact on her creative work.
Martinez is the author of five books of poetry, two chapbooks, and one book of translations.
Each and Her (winner of the 2011 Arizona Book Award) was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, the William Carlos William Award, the National Book Critics Circle award, the PEN Open Book Award, the Ron Ridenhour Prize (among other honors) and was an honorable mention in the 2011 International Latino Book Awards. Each and Her is a book-length, collage poem which addresses the murders of women in Juarez, Mexico, as well as the phenomenon of femicide. It continues to receive wide acclaim and is taught in Latino Literature, Women's Literature and other literature classes nationwide.
Martinez's first book of poetry, Absence, Luminescent (Four Way Books 1999), won the Larry Levis Prize and a Greenwall Grant from the Academy of American Poets after being a finalist in the Walt Whitman, National Poetry Series, and Intro Award competitions. Prize judge Jean Valentine praised the book thus: "Valerie Martinez has written an extraordinary book; these poems are expansive, surprising, intelligent; her subjects are as alive as her language. Her willingness to take risks is uncommon, and so is her compassion." A second edition of the book was published in 2010.
Martinez's second book, World to World, was published by the University of Arizona Press in 2004 and her translations of the poetry of Uruguay’s Delmira Agustini (1886-1914), A Flock of Scarlet Doves, was published in special edition by Sutton Hoo Press in 2005. A collection of poems about Santa Fe, New Mexico (written during her tenure as Poet Laureate of Santa Fe), And They Called it Horizon, was published by Sunstone Press in 2010.
Martinez's chapbook-length hybrid work (poetry & prose), "A Hundred Little Mouths," premiered in November 2015 with Susan Silton's "Whistling Project" at SITE Santa Fe. Her long poem, "This is How it Began," a creation story about the city of Santa Fe, New Mexico, was published by the Press of the Palace of the Governors in 2010, at the end of her tenure as Santa Fe Poet Laureate.
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