Jean Valentine: New York State Poet Laureate

Valentine brings more than forty years of experience to the role of New York State Poet Laureate, an office she will hold until 2010. Her curious, intimate and dreamlike verse usually begins with a feeling, as she explained in an interview with the Poetry Society of America. Valentine comes from the same origins of late twentieth-century feminine poetry as her friends Adrienne Rich and Jane Cooper, and she taught for most of her life at Sarah Lawrence College. Her collection Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems won the 2004 National Book Award for Poetry, and her newest collection of poems, Little Boat, was published in 2007.

Jean Valentine reading "Artist in Prison"

"Lachalupa"

"Time is Matter Here"

Read More about Jean Valentine

Valentine's Interview with the Poetry Society of America

Sarah Lawrence Press Release on Valentine as Poet Laureate

Back to Poetry home