Valerie Martínez

01/19/2010 02:48 PM

NEWS: 

• Please visit the Lines & Circles exhibit of poems and mixed-media works of art, the culmination of Valerie's community outreach project as Santa Fe Poet Laureate, on display through March 19, 2010 at the Arts Commission Gallery at the corner of Sheridan and Marcy St. in downtown Santa Fe.  Learn more by clicking on "Poet Laureate" at left.

• Valerie's newest book, about the Lines & Circles families project, is now available through both Amazon and Sunstone Press. See the book and learn more at: http://www.amazon.com/Lines-Circles-Celebration-Santa-Families/dp/0865347468/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I4OAIY0CAEFND&colid=2YW82XKF05CT4 and http://www.sunstonepress.com/cgi-bin/bookview.cgi?_recordnum=597

• Valerie was recently awarded the SAGE Magazine/Albuquerque Journal Award for "Twenty Women Making A Difference."  Learn more at: http://www.abqjournal.com/sage. 

• Watch an animated version of Valerie's poem, "Bowl" on the PBS/Poetry Everywhere website:  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/poetryeverywhere/uwm/martinez.html

• Read about Valerie's activities and events as Poet Laureate at www.sfpoetlaureate.blogspot.com

• Valerie is Executive Director of Littleglobe, Inc. Learn more about Littleglobe at www.littleglobe.org

Valerie's Books, Publications, Creative Projects, Biography

Valerie Martínez is a poet, teacher, translator, playwright/librettist, editor and collaborative artist. Her first book of poetry, Absence, Luminescent (Four Way Books, 1999), won the Larry Levis Prize and a Greenwall Grant from the Academy of American Poet after being a finalist in the Walt Whitman, National Poetry Series, and Intro Award competitions. Her second book, World to World, was published by the University of Arizona Press in 2004. Martinez’s 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 and a book-length poem, Each and Her, is forthcoming from the University of Arizona Press in the fall of 2010. Her collection of Santa Fe poems (written during her tenure as Poet Laureate of Santa Fe), And They Called it Horizon, will also be published in Spring 2010 (Sunstone Press) as will a special hand press edition of her long poem "This is How it Began" (Palace Press).

Martinez’s poetry, translations, and essays have appeared in many literary journals and magazines including American Poetry Review; Parnassus; The Colorado Review; Puerto del Sol; The Notre Dame Review; Mandorla, Tiferet, The Bloomsbury Review, and AGNI. Her poems have also appeared in various anthologies of contemporary poetry, including The Best American Poetry (1996); New American Poets--A Breadloaf Anthology; American Poetry--Next Generation, Touching the Fire--Fifteen Poets of Today’s Latino Renaissance; Renaming Ecstasy--Latino Writings on the Sacred and Junta--Contemporary Latino/a Poetry of the Avant Garde. Martínez served as assistant editor of the anthology Reinventing the Enemy’s Language--Contemporary Writing by Native Women of North America (Norton 1997) and an essay about Joy Harjo (along with poems by Harjo and Martínez) appears in the anthology Women Poets on Mentorship: Efforts and Affections (University of Iowa Press, 2008).  An animated version of Valerie’s poem “Bowl,” from World to World, appears in the Poetry Everywhere Series sponsored by PBS and The Poetry Foundation.

Valerie is Executive Director of Littleglobe, Inc., a New Mexico-based artist-run non profit.  Littleglobe creates and produces both small scale artist collaborations and large scale community arts projects.  Individual/smaller scale projects include Garden, Muse Rescue, Ruta (a bus opera), Lines and Circles, and Salve (see www.littleglobe.org for more information). Littleglobe's large scale projects are collaborations between the Littleglobe team and community residents.  In June of 2008, Littleglobe premiered the first Common Ground Festival with members of the Cuba, Torreon, and Ojo Encino communities—a multi-media performance created by an inter-generational ensemble of eighty Navajo, Hispanic, African-American and White community residents, ages 5-85. Littleglobe's mission is "to create collaborative art, nurture community capacity, and foster life-affirmation connections across the boundaries that divide us."

As the Poet Laureate for the City of Santa Fe (2008-2010) and Littleglobe artist, Valerie is currently Artistic Director of Lines & Circles, a public art community project involving three generations of Santa Fe families who are creating original and unique family works of art and poetry to be exhibited in early 2010. Sunstone Press will publish the catalogue/book related to the project when the exhibition premiers on January 15, 2010.

Valerie also has more then twenty years of experience as a classroom teacher, primarily at the college level. She has a B.A. from Vassar College and an M.F.A. from The University of Arizona. She has taught at the University of Arizona, Ursinus College, New Mexico Highlands University, University of New Mexico, College of Santa Fe and in the rural schools of Swaziland.  She lives and works in Santa Fe and Albuquerque.