07/27/10

NEWS:

• Valerie will read from her forthcoming book, EACH AND HER (University of Arizona Press) which has been nominated for a National Book Award (click on "Books" for more information) in Chicago on the evening of September 15, 2010, sponsored by the Poetry Foundation, the Guild Complex, and Letras Latinas. Check back here in August for more details.

• If you are 16-21 years old, in CYFD care in New Mexico (or an independent living program with CYFD), please contact Valerie about participating in the "Open Books" project (poetry and art) sponsored by the Global Education Fund & Littleglobe.  Valerie and artist Maureen Burdock (www.maureenburdock.com) will be conducting free workshops in Albuquerque and Las Cruces in June, July and August 2010.  Click on "Workshops," left, to learn more!

• Valerie is a member of the core artist team creating RUTA: A Santa Fe Bus Opera. Click on "Performance," at left.

• Follow this link to read a collaborative "dialogue" entitled "A Decolonial Poetics," organized by J. Michael Martínez and published by Breach Press: http://www.breachjournal.com/main.html.  Valerie was lucky enough to be part of this important conversation between Latino/a writers and artists.

• Valerie is Executive Director and member of the core artist team 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.  She is Executive Director and Core Artist with Littleglobe (see below). 

Valerie'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.  The second edition of Absence, Luminescent will be published the summer of 2010. 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 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 2010 (Sunstone Press) and the Palace Press (http://www.palaceofthegovernors.org/PrintShop/hmpg.html) has published a special edition, hand-press volume containing Valerie's long poem about Santa Fe, This is How it Began.  Click on "Books" for more information about Valerie's books.

Martinez’s poetry, translations, and essays have appeared widely in 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; 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).  Valerie’s poem “September, 2001” was featured in the Washington Post’s “Poet’s Choice” Series (September 2009) and an animated version of Valerie’s poem “Bowl,” appears in the Poetry Everywhere Series (PBS/The Poetry Foundation).  Click on "Curriculum Vitae" for Valerie's full c.v.

Valerie is Executive Director and core artist with Littleglobe, an artist-run non-profit that collaborates with communities in creating public works of art, installation, and performance as well as produces smaller scale artist collaborations.  Current and recent projects include Open Books, a poetry and art project with youth in CYFD care; RUTA, a bus opera which will premiere in Santa Fe in the fall of 2011; Lines & Circles, a public art  and poetry community project involving three and four generations of Santa Fe families; Salve: Women on War and Warriorship, a spoken word and musical performance that explores the stories and reflections of women war veterans, What Will You Remember?--a spoken word performance (with Jasmine Cuffee, Jamie Figueroa and Lauren Camp) in response to the Form & Function exhibit at 516 Arts in Albuquerque, and Lifesongs, a project in which elders in hospice and nursing homes collaborate with artists, writers, composers, and visual artists to create original musical pieces.   Learn more at www.littleglobe.org.

Valerie has more than twenty years of experience as a classroom teacher, primarily at the college level.  For over ten years, she has also taught children, young adults, adults, teachers, and seniors in a wide range of community outreach and educational programs.  In 2009 Valerie was awarded the Albuquerque Journal/SAGE Magazine “Twenty Women Who Have Made a Difference” award for her creative and community work.

 Valerie 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, the Institute for American Indian Art (IAIA) and in the rural schools of Swaziland.  She was the Poet Laureate for the City of Santa Fe, New Mexico from March 2008-March 2010.

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This site was last updated 07/27/10