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NEW BOOKS:
Each and Her (a book-length poem), University of
Arizona Press, 2010
Winner of the 2011 Arizona Book Award for
Poetry .
Each and Her also received Honorable Mention
in the
2011
International Latino Book Awards and was nominated for
the PEN Open Book Award, The Ron Ridenhour Prize, the National Book Critics
Circle Award, the William Carlos William Awards, the Pulitzer Prize, and
other awards.
Each and Her
is a book-length, collage poem that addresses (among other things) the
murders of over six hundred women in Juarez, Mexico since 1993. At the
same time, the poem engages with works of contemporary Mexican poets,
photographers, and painters; American theologians; Latin American and
Chicano writers; the author's memories of traveling to Juarez as a young girl, facts about the maquiladora industry,
a history of the cultivation of roses
and personal loss. Each and Her is an attempt to grapple with
violence against women on both a personal and mass scale. At the same
time, Valerie calls the book a "love poem" which underscores the power of
love and human connection.
"They were roses, those
tender girls broken against the edge of the border between Mexico and the
U.S.. They were our sisters, our daughters, our nieces, granddaughters; they
are us. Each word in Valerie Martinez’s elegant lament is planted with
urgent purpose. Each word is watered with grief. Each flower of a
girl is absolutely particular in the field of flowers and blood. There can
be no more silence. These poems make an opening in the pathway for justice."
--Joy Harjo
"Martinez's Each and Her is a major
achievement. Rose and rot, want and greed, empires and their myths: all
point to the murders of many young women in the Mexican state of Chihuahua,
and every one of us is implicated."
--Maurice Kilwein Guevara
Each and Her Cover Art by Kathy Vargas
©2010
"Here is understated yet seething work that manages
to be both public and private--all of it holding together in this
fully achieved book-length poem."
--Francisco Aragon
And They Called It
Horizon: Santa Fe Poems, Sunstone Press
During her
two-year tenure as Santa Fe’s Poet Laureate, award-winning poet Valerie
Martínez appeared at over 45 public events—in schools, museums, cafés,
galleries; in public parks and local banks and libraries; for children,
youth, adults, and families. While traversing the city, she was writing
about it—occasional poems, meditations, narratives, lyric poems—that capture
the present and past of the capital city and its people.
Drawings by Linda Swanson (whose work is in the
permanent collections of The Brooklyn Museum and The Newark Museum)
accompany the poems and capture the tenderness and beauty of family life.
“With the publication of this book, Valerie Martínez has established herself
as the Poet of Santa Fe. In poems of limpid clarity, compelling force
and distinctive artistry she sings her love for this land and its people;
but there is more. The days and years of Santa Fe, portrayed in
knowing detail, form the center; but t-small.jpg) he perimeter is boundless.”
--Roberts
French
"The poetry delicately born into this book reflects the beauty and tragedy
of a place older than its name and still ever changing. These words
bear witness
to wisdom and nurture births yet unknown. While she could, our Poet
Laureate does not wear the laurel leaves of Apollo, but carries a wreath
woven from the Santa Fe horizon itself."
--Estevan Rael-Gálvez, Executive Director, National Hispanic Cultural
Center
"swimsuit" by Linda Swanson ©2009
Absence,
Luminescent (poems), Second Edition. Four Way Books, 2010.
Now in its second edition, this award-winning book
was chosen for the Larry Levis Prize in 1999 by Jean Valentine. Demand
for Absence, Luminescent has led to a second edition, newly minted
(and with a new cover) by Four Way Books. Now available (click on
"Contact," left) from the publisher.
"Larry Levis's poems are full of passion, mystery, and
conscience, so it is a deep joy that this prize, given in his name, should
go to a poet like him in those ways. Valerie Martínez
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; she
doesn't shy away from pain, and she lives in the poet's task of praise.
I once asked a poet what she wanted of poetry, and she said, 'experience.'
Absence, Luminescent embodies experience, and the authority of
experience: these poems are moving, mysterious, passionate, and
written for the sake of something larger than ourselves."--Jean Valentine,
judge, Larry Levis Prize, 1999.
 Also
in print:
This is How It
Began, Palace of
the Governor's Press (limited edition),
March 2010
The
Press at the Palace of the Governors has completed its newest book, a
limited edition of This is How It Began, by Santa Fe Poet Laureate
Valerie Martínez. The hand-bound book, printed in two colors on a
variety of warm-toned papers, represents the working-press side of the
Palace Press, which also exhibits materials from New Mexico’s publishing
past.
Tom Leech, who directs the activities of the Press, said “the rich literary
legacy of New Mexico was nurtured in its early years by artisan printers.
Our commitment to the Santa Fe Poet Laureate program acknowledges and
celebrates that tradition. Valerie’s beautiful poem about Santa Fe, from the
creation to the present, really feels at home in the pages of this book. I’m
very pleased to have had the opportunity to show off the craftsmanship and
talents of our staff and volunteers who worked on the book.”
According to Martinez, This is How It Began “is my gift to the many
residents who have educated me, enlightened me, and deepened my love for
Santa Fe.”
 Ask
Me Who I Am: Writing and Art by New Mexico CYFD Youth, Littleglobe
Productions, December 2010
Edited by Valerie Martínez and Maureen Burdock
This anthology emerged from the 2010 "Open Books" project. For eight
months, Valerie and visual artist Maureen Burdock worked with older youth
(ages 16-21) in foster care and/or independent living programs with the New
Mexico Department of Children, Youth and Families. The goal of the project was to engage older CYFD youth in creative exercises that would enable them to generate writing,
poetry and art that explores/reflects their particular struggles, successes,
and dreams. At the same time, the artists were able to mentor youth, encouraging facilitation and leadership through creative engagement
and collaboration.
The anthology celebrates writing by nine featured poets as
well as drawings and poetry by youth who participated in the
workshops.
Featured writers: Megan Tetreault, Chyrell Howard, Ischad, Joe Ray*,
Lonnie Elizabeth*, Aaron Trevor Benally, Brandy Jones, Skyler*, Lauren
Markie Huichan-Rivera.
“As you read the stories
and poetry of these incredible youth, their feelings of heartache, pain,
anger, trauma, loss, and sadness will be evident. But if that’s all you
feel, you will have missed the point. My hope is that you will feel the
strength, power, resiliency, and determination of these amazing young
people. If you feel that, then you will come to know these youth as I did.
Maybe they will change your life as they changed mine.”
--Jared
Rounsville, Acting Director, Protective Services Division, New Mexico CYFD
(* Last names of youth under 18 are
protected by law.)
Lines & Circles: A
Celebration of Santa Fe Families, Sunstone Press, January 2010.
 As Poet Laureate for the City of Santa Fe, Valerie brought together three generations of 11
Santa Fe families to compose/create unique family “works” (story, short
film, photograph, woodwork, quilt, sculpture, pottery, recording, etc.) as
well as original poems. The families worked inter-generationally, with the
Poet Laureate and (periodically), in company with each other. The finished pieces
constitute an exhibit entitled “Lines & Circles: A Celebration of
Santa Fe Families” that premiers on January 15, 2010 in an exhibition that
runs through March 19, 2010 at the Santa Fe Arts Commission Gallery at the
Santa Fe Convention Center.
This book describes the project, profiles the
families, and features a wealth of old and new family photos, genealogical
charts, the family artwork and poems, and more. Sabrina Pratt,
Executive Director of the Santa Fe Arts Commission says, of the project: "Poet
Laureate Valerie Martínez’s community project is outstanding in its deep
engagement with Santa Fe families. Readers of this book will find that her
work is a model for community-based projects. It has resulted in the
gathering of community members to prepare work that reflects the lives of
the dozen families and thereby Santa Fe at-large. The Arts Commission is
extremely proud of this project, which helps us to meet our goal of creating
access to the arts for Santa Feans."
World
to World (poems), University of Arizona Press, 2004
"A brave and beautiful voice."--Demetria
Martínez
"Lush and lovely
poems which speak the secret languages of desire."--Lisa D. Chávez
From the back cover: "In her
second collection of poems, Valerie Martinez builds on the artistic command
of language that characterized her award-winning first volume, Absence,
Luminescent. Taking on not only such familiar themes as love and
loss, family and culture, but also the creative act of poetry itself.
World to World crosses new boundaries to chart a mature poet's
awareness of her own voice and style...Here are the strange and provocative
landscapes of the body and its disappearance...of matter and absence of
matter...of what is formed and what is falling from form. Throughout
this compelling cycle, her deft manipulations of poetic structure disclose
the boundaries where flesh, matter, and language become spirit, space, and 'cataratical
brilliance.' "
A
Flock of Scarlet Doves: Selected Translations of Delmira Agustini
 (Uruguay 1886-1914),
Sutton Hoo Press 2005
From
the introduction: "Delmira Agustini, along with Gabriela Mistral,
Alfonsina Storni, and Juana de Ibarbourou, is one of the most important
poets of early twentieth century Latin American literature. Although
Agustini's career was short [she died before her 28th birthday], her
influence on Latin American letters is significant...[Agustini's] vision,
which grew more fervent as her short career developed, ultimately explores
the terrain between the magnetic poles of human passion--innocence and
desire, attraction and escape, soul and flesh, feminine and masculine--in an
effort to depict the tension between them, their complex and charged (dis)harmony.
In this way, she stands distinctly apart from Latin American poetry that
came before her and serves to redefine, in a radical way, female poetic
consciousness at the turn of the twentieth century."
Absence,
Luminescent (poems), Four Way Books 1999 (First Edition)
"Larry Levis's poems are full of passion, mystery, and
conscience, so it is a deep joy that this prize, given in his name, should
go to a poet like him in those ways. Valerie Martínez
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; she
doesn't shy away from pain, and she lives in the poet's task of praise.
I once asked a poet what she wanted of poetry, and she said, 'Experience.'
Absence, Luminescent embodies experience, and the authority of
experience: these poems are moving, mysterious, passionate, and
written for the sake of something larger than ourselves."--Jean Valentine,
judge, Larry Levis Prize, 1999.
A second edition of Absence,
Luminescent was published in the fall of 2010. Rare, first edition
copies of AL are sometimes available through sellers on Amazon.
Reinventing
the Enemy's Language: Contemporary Writing
by Native Women
of North
America, Norton & Norton,
1997
Edited by Joy Harjo & Gloria Bird. Assistant Editors Valerie Martínez and
Patricia Blanco.
"Clearly one of the most significant
anthologies ever to be published in English...A book I have been yearning
for all my life."--Alice Walker
"A collection of important, eloquent,
and often mesmerizing writings...A profoundly moving statement of resilience
and renewal."--San Francisco Chronicle
Winner of a Myers Outstanding Book
Award, presented through the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry
and Human Rights in North America.
Efforts
an d Affections: Women Poets on
Mentorship, University of Iowa Press,
2008
Edited by Rachel Zucker and Arielle
Greenberg, with an essay by Valerie Martínez about
Joy Harjo, and poems by Harjo and Martínez.
"I know of no other book like this
one. It sheds light not on one woman poet or one facet of 'women's
poetry,' but on the many ways the poetic tradition is handed down
from one writer to another. The multiplicity of voices in this book
along with the wide variety of aesthetics and backgrounds of the
contributors make it unique in the field. It is a significant and
needed contribution."—Kevin Prufer, editor, Pleiades: A Journal
of New Writing
"Much has been written by and about women
poets and women's poetry, but this is the first that addresses the
topic of mentorship in a way that expands what we mean by
'tradition.' No other book looks at the question of how tradition
moves from one generation to the next, from the younger generation's
point of view. My own poetry students have talked about the need for
exactly such a book. Women Poets on Mentorship will be
important to today's (and tomorrow's) poetry community, as well as
to women's studies."—Alicia Ostriker, author, Writing Like a
Woman and Stealing the Language: The Emergence of Women's
Poetry in America
Contributors include Jenny Factor on Marilyn Hacker, Beth Ann
Fennelly on Denise Duhamel, Miranda Field on Fanny Howe, Katie Ford
on Jorie Graham, Joy Katz on Sharon Olds, Valerie Martínez on Joy
Harjo, Erika Meitner on Rita Dove, Aimee Nezhukumatathil on Naomi
Shihab Nye, Eleni Sikelianos on Alice Notley, Tracy K. Smith on
Lucie Brock-Broido, Crystal Williams on Lucille Clifton, and Rebecca
Wolff on Molly Peacock.
Arielle Greenberg is an assistant professor in
the poetry programs at Columbia College Chicago, where she teaches
in the Department of English and is assistant director of poetry
programs. She is the author of two poetry collections, My Kafka
Century and Given, and the editor of Youth
Subcultures: Exploring Underground America. She lives with her
family in Evanston, Illinois. Rachel Zucker is the
author of Eating in the Underworld, The Last Clear
Narrative, and The Bad Wife Handbook. She was recently
the poet-in-residence at Fordham University. She lives with her
family in New York City.
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