Valerie Martínez

Valerie Martínez
author photo
Born 1961
Nationality American
Ethnicity Native American, Hispanic
Alma mater Vassar College; University of Arizona
Genre Poetry

Valerie Martínez (born 1961) is an award-winning American poet, teacher, translator, librettist, social activist and collaborative artist.

Life

Martinez was born and raised in Santa Fe, New Mexico and descends from native Pueblo ancestors as well as 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 to Europe, Mexico, Israel, Japan, Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa—including three years in southern Africa where she taught English in the rural schools of Swaziland.

Martinez taught as non-tenured and tenured faculty for over 20 years at the college/university level with emphases in Poetry, American Literature, Women's Literature, Native American Literature and Latino/a Literature. At the College of Santa Fe she was the Director of Interdisciplinary Studies, creating cross-disciplinary curricular programs in Southwest Studies and Humanities. While in academia, Martinez also directed a wide range of community outreach programs engaging communities with literary arts and collaborative art programs.

Martinez is the author of four books of poetry 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. Martinez's first book of poetry, Absence, Luminescent (Four Way Books 1999 & 2010), 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. 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 collection of Santa Fe poems (written during her tenure as Poet Laureate of Santa Fe), And They Called it Horizon, was published by Sunstone Press in 2010.

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 work appears in many 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 and Renaming Ecstasy--Latino Writings on the Sacred. Martínez also 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). An animated version of Valerie’s poem, “Bowl,” appears in the Poetry Everywhere Series (PBS/The Poetry Foundation) and has been put to music by composer Glen Rover and sung by soprano Talise Trevigne on her acclaimed CD, At the Statue of Venus (GPR Records).

In 2007 Martinez was invited by Molly Sturges and Littleglobe (Santa Fe, New Mexico) to participate in one of the organization's large-scale arts engagement projects resulting in the new opera, "Memorylines: Santa Fe". In 2009 Martinez became the Executive Director of the organization, an artist-run collaborative consisting of diverse seasoned artists, facilitators, activists, and cultural workers devoted to building individual and community capacity through creative community engagement.

Martinez has extensive experience as a program and project director for several large-scale arts and community engagement projects including Stories of Route 66: The International District; Margin to Margin, End to End: The Santa Fe Bus Opera; Rivers Run Through Us; Lines and Circles: A Celebration of Santa Fe Families, EKCO Poets and Women & Creativity.

In 2009 Martinez was awarded the Albuquerque Journal/SAGE Magazine award, honoring “Twenty Women Who Have Made a Difference.” In 2014 Martinez received a Creative Bravos Award for her extraordinary contributions to Albuquerque's creative economy. Martinez and Shelle Van Etten de Sanchez delivered a 2014 TEDx ABQ talk entitled: "Collaboration Driven by Imagination" on September 6, 2014 in Albuquerque.

Published Works

Full-Length Poetry Collections

Translations

Anthologies Edited

Honors & Awards

References

  1. ↑ Sutton Hoo Press > Titles > A Flock of Scarlet Doves
  2. ↑ Sunstone Press > Books > Lines and Circles: A Celebration of Santa Fe Families
  3. ↑ Creative Albuquerque > Creative Bravos Awards}
  4. ↑ The City of Santa Fe Website > The City of Santa Fe’s Poet Laureate > Valerie Martínez – 2008 – 2010 Poet Laureate > Biography
  5. ↑ Four Way Books > Author Page > Valerie Martínez
  6. ↑ Academy of American Poets > The Greenwall Fund Grant Recipients

Sources

External links