Jean Valentine

{{for|the World War II bombe operator at Bletchley Park|Jean Valentine (bombe operator)}}

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Jean Valentine (April 27, 1934{{spnd}}December 29, 2020) was an American poet and the New York State Poet Laureate from 2008 to 2010.{{Cite web|url=https://poets.org/poet/jean-valentine|title=About Jean Valentine {{!}} Academy of American Poets|last=Poets|first=Academy of American|website=poets.org|access-date=2019-08-02}} Her poetry collection, Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965–2003, was awarded the 2004 National Book Award for Poetry.

Biography

Valentine was born in Chicago, Illinois, on April 27, 1934. Her father was a Navy man.{{cite web|url=https://www.pshares.org/issues/winter-2008-09/about-jean-valentine|title=Ploughshares at Emerson College, About Jean Valentine, by Amy Newman, Issue 107, winter 2007–2008}} She received a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Master of Arts degree from Radcliffe College of Harvard University, and lived most of her life in New York City, where she died on December 29, 2020.

Her most recent book, Shirt In Heaven, was published in 2015. Before that, Break the Glass, published in 2010, was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.[http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/Poetry "Poetry"]. Past winners & finalists by category. The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2012-04-08.

Valentine's first book, Dream Barker (Yale University Press, 1965), was chosen in 1964 for the Yale Series of Younger Poets and won the competition the following year.{{cite web|url=https://poets.org/poet/jean-valentine|title=poets.org, Jean Valentine}} She published poems widely in literary journals and magazines, including The New Yorker,{{cite magazine|url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/03/09/hawkins-stable|title=Hawkins Stable|magazine=The New Yorker|date=2 March 2009 |access-date=23 July 2017}} and Harper's Magazine,{{cite web|url=http://www.harpers.org/subjects/JeanValentine|title=Harper's Magazine Poem: Forces > by Jean Valentine|access-date=23 July 2017}} and The American Poetry Review. Valentine was one of five poets, including Charles Wright, Russell Edson, James Tate and Louise Glück, whose work Lee Upton considered critically in The Muse of Abandonment: Origin, Identity, Mastery in Five American Poets (Bucknell University Press, 1998).{{cite book|url=https://lccn.loc.gov/98012153|title=The muse of abandonment : origin, identity, mastery, in five American poets|year=1998 |publisher=Library of Congress Online Catalog|isbn=9780838753965 |access-date=23 July 2017}} She held residencies from Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony,{{cite web|url=http://www.macdowellcolony.org/artists-indexfellows.php|title=Index of Fellows on Portable MacDowell – The MacDowell Colony|website=www.macdowellcolony.org|access-date=23 July 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090526052307/http://www.macdowellcolony.org/artists-indexfellows.php|archive-date=26 May 2009|url-status=dead}} Ucross, and the Lannan foundation,{{cite web|url=http://www.lannan.org/lf/res/past/P120/|title=Lannan Foundation|first=Lannan|last=Foundation|website=www.lannan.org|access-date=23 July 2017}} among others.

She taught with the Graduate Writing Program at New York University, at Columbia University, at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, and at Sarah Lawrence College. She was a faculty member at the Vermont College of Fine Arts.{{Cite web | url = http://www.jeanvalentine.com/pdfs/cv.pdf | date = April 2, 2014 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160304234941/http://www.jeanvalentine.com/pdfs/cv.pdf | archive-date = March 4, 2016 | url-status = dead | title = Jean Valentine CV | website = www.jeanvalentine.com}}{{cite web|url=http://www.vermontcollege.edu/mfaw/faculty.asp|title=Vermont College of Fine Arts — Faculty|access-date=23 July 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090607083000/http://www.vermontcollege.edu/mfaw/faculty.asp|archive-date=7 June 2009|url-status=dead}}{{cite web|url=http://www.pshares.org/authors/author-detail.cfm?authorID=1566|title=Read By Author – Ploughshares|website=www.pshares.org|access-date=23 July 2017|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160306101818/https://www.pshares.org/authors/author-detail.cfm?authorID=1566|archive-date=6 March 2016}}

She was Distinguished Poet-in-Residence for Drew University's MFA in Poetry & Poetry in Translation.{{cite web|url=https://patch.com/new-jersey/madison/a-celebration-of-jean-valentine-a-symposium-of-the-work-of-jean-valentine|title=Patch, A Celebration of Jean Valentine: A Symposium of the Work of Jean Valentine, 2014|date=29 May 2014 }}

She was married to the late American historian James Chace from 1957 to 1968, and they are survived by two daughters, Sarah and Rebecca.{{cite web|url=https://www.pshares.org/issues/winter-2008-09/about-jean-valentine|title=Ploughshares at Emerson College, About Jean Valentine, by Amy Newman, Issue 107, winter 2007–2008}}

Valentine died in Manhattan on December 29, 2020.{{Cite news|last=Seelye|first=Katharine Q.|date=2021-01-07|title=Jean Valentine, Minimalist Poet With Maximum Punch, Dies at 86|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/arts/jean-valentine-dead.html|access-date=2021-01-08|issn=0362-4331}}

Published works

;Full-length poetry collections

Shirt in Heaven (2015, Copper Canyon Press)
Break the Glass (2010, Copper Canyon Press)
Little Boat (2007, Wesleyan University Press)
Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965–2003 (2004, Wesleyan University Press) —winner of the National Book Award
The Cradle of the Real Life (2000, Wesleyan University Press)
Growing Darkness, Growing Light (1997, Carnegie Mellon University Press)
The Under Voice: Selected Poems (1995, Salmon Publishing)
The River at Wolf (1992, Alice James Books)
Night Lake (1992, Press of Appletree Alley: limited edition of 150, hand-bound, illustrated by Linda Plotkin.)
Home Deep Blue: New and Selected Poems (1989, Alice James Books)
The Messenger (1979, Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Ordinary Things (1974, Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Pilgrims (1969, Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Dream Barker, and Other Poems (1965, Yale University Press)

;Anthology publications

Leaving New York: Writers Look Back (Hungry Mind Press, 1995)

;Anthologies edited

The Lighthouse Keeper: Essays on the Poetry of Eleanor Ross Taylor (Hobart & William Smith, 2001).

Awards and honors

2004 National Book Award for Poetry (for Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965–2003)

[https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-2004 "National Book Awards – 2004"]. National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-04-08.
(With acceptance speech by Valentine, essay by Dilruba Ahmed from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog, and other material.)

1999 Shelley Memorial Award
1991 Maurice English Poetry Award
1988 Beatrice Hawley Award (for Home Deep Blue: New and Selected Poems)
1976 Guggenheim Fellowship
1972 National Endowment for the Arts – Literature Fellowship in Poetry [https://web.archive.org/web/20060415085501/http://www.nea.gov/pub/NEA_lit.pdf NEA Literature Fellowships – Creative Writing Fellows]
1965 Yale Series of Younger Poets

References

=Bibliography=

Publishers Weekly Review of Door in the Mountain by Reed Business Information (Accessed via the [http://www.spl.org Seattle Public Library] and Syndetic Solutions, Inc.)
Weiner, Tim. "James Chace, Foreign Policy Thinker, Is Dead at 72". The New York Times (Late East Coast edition), October 11, 2004, p. B.7. {{ProQuest|710384891}}

External links

[http://www.jeanvalentine.com/ Jean Valentine website]
[http://www.bu.edu/phpbin/buniverse/videos/view/?id=214 Video: Poetry Reading: Jean Valentine]
[http://www.poetrysociety.org/journal/articles/valentine.html Poetry Society of America: Crossroads > A Conversation with Jean Valentine > by Eve Grubin]
[http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:RAD.SCHL:sch00369 Jean Valentine Papers] [http://www.radcliffe.edu/schles Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120509153246/http://www.radcliffe.edu/schles |date=2012-05-09 }}
[http://www.wnyc.org/news/articles/95902 Audio: Jean Valentine Reading for WNYC Radio]
[http://www.aprweb.org/issues/jan05/valentine.html The American Poetry Review > Jan/Feb 2005 Vol. 34/No. 1 > Jean Valentine] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080704121147/http://www.aprweb.org/issues/jan05/valentine.html |date=2008-07-04 }}
[http://catalog.loc.gov/ Library of Congress Online Catalog]
[http://www.jeanvalentine.com/bio06.html Author Website > Jean Valentine: Books/Bio]
[http://www.jeanvalentine.com/pdfs/cv.pdf Author Website > Jean Valentine C.V.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304234941/http://www.jeanvalentine.com/pdfs/cv.pdf |date=2016-03-04 }}
[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D06E3D8143EF93BA15752C1A9629C8B63&sec=&spon=&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink The New York Times > A Poet in Yonkers > by Hershenson, Roberta > Nov. 28, 2004, section 14WC, p. 13]
[http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/760 Academy of American Poets > Jean Valentine]
[http://www.novelguide.com/a/discover/aww_04/aww_04_01228.html Novel Guide]