Jean Valentine

For the World War II bombe operator at Bletchley Park, see Jean Valentine (bombe operator).
Jean Valentine
Born(1934-04-27)April 27, 1934
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
DiedDecember 29, 2020(2020-12-29) (aged 86)
New York City
OccupationPoet, Professor
NationalityAmerican
EducationRadcliffe College (B.A.)
Harvard University (M.A.)
Period1965-2020
GenrePoetry
Notable works
  • The River at Wolf (1992)
  • Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems (2004)
  • Little Boat (2007)
  • Break the Glass (2010)
  • Shirt in Heaven (2015)
Notable awards
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1957; div. 1968)​
ChildrenSarah Chace
Rebecca Chace
Poet Laureate of New York
In office
2008–2010
Preceded byBilly Collins
Succeeded byMarie Howe

Jean Valentine (April 27, 1934 – December 29, 2020) was an American poet. Over a six-decade career, Valentine published 14 collections of poetry. She received the 2004 National Book Award for Poetry for Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965-2003,[1] and was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Break the Glass. In celebrating the later, the committee of judges noted, “This is a collection in which small details can accrue great power and a reader is never sure where any poem might lead.”[2]

Throughout her career, Valentine served on the Creative Writing faculty of New York University, Columbia University, and Sarah Lawrence College.[3] Among numerous awards and honors, she was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Bollingen Prize, and the Yale Younger Poets Prize. Additionally, Valentine served as Poet Laureate of New York from 2008 to 2010.[4] Often celebrated for her minimalist poetics, fellow poet Seamus Heaney once described her verse as “rapturous, risky, shy of words but desperately true to them.”[5]

Biography

Valentine was born in Chicago, Illinois, on April 27, 1934. Her father was a Navy man.[6] 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.[7]

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.[8] She published poems widely in literary journals and magazines, including The New Yorker,[9] and Harper's Magazine,[10] 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).[11] She held residencies from Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony,[12] Ucross, and the Lannan foundation,[13] 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.[14][15][16]

She was Distinguished Poet-in-Residence for Drew University's MFA in Poetry & Poetry in Translation.[17]

She was married to the late American historian James Chace from 1957 to 1968, and they are survived by two daughters, Sarah and Rebecca.[18]

Valentine died in Manhattan on December 29, 2020.[19]

Published works

Full-length poetry collections
Anthology publications
  • Leaving New York: Writers Look Back (Hungry Mind Press, 1995)
Anthologies edited

Awards and honors

References

  1. ^ a b c "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.)
  2. ^ Seelye, Katharine Q. “Jean Valentine, Minimalist Poet With Maximum Punch, Dies at 86.” The New York Times, January 7, 2021. Accessed July 16, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/arts/jean-valentine-dead.html.
  3. ^ “Jean Valentine.” Poetry Foundation. Accessed July 16, 2025. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jean-valentine.
  4. ^ Poets, Academy of American. "About Jean Valentine | Academy of American Poets". poets.org. Retrieved 2019-08-02.
  5. ^ "Obituary Note: Jean Valentine." Issue 3901. Shelf Awareness. Accessed July 16, 2025. https://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=3901#m51079.
  6. ^ "Ploughshares at Emerson College, About Jean Valentine, by Amy Newman, Issue 107, winter 2007–2008".
  7. ^ "Poetry". Past winners & finalists by category. The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2012-04-08.
  8. ^ "poets.org, Jean Valentine".
  9. ^ "Hawkins Stable". The New Yorker. 2 March 2009. Retrieved 23 July 2017.
  10. ^ "Harper's Magazine Poem: Forces > by Jean Valentine". Retrieved 23 July 2017.
  11. ^ The muse of abandonment : origin, identity, mastery, in five American poets. Library of Congress Online Catalog. 1998. ISBN 9780838753965. Retrieved 23 July 2017.
  12. ^ "Index of Fellows on Portable MacDowell – The MacDowell Colony". www.macdowellcolony.org. Archived from the original on 26 May 2009. Retrieved 23 July 2017.
  13. ^ Foundation, Lannan. "Lannan Foundation". www.lannan.org. Retrieved 23 July 2017.
  14. ^ "Jean Valentine CV" (PDF). www.jeanvalentine.com. April 2, 2014. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 4, 2016.
  15. ^ "Vermont College of Fine Arts — Faculty". Archived from the original on 7 June 2009. Retrieved 23 July 2017.
  16. ^ "Read By Author – Ploughshares". www.pshares.org. Archived from the original on 6 March 2016. Retrieved 23 July 2017.
  17. ^ "Patch, A Celebration of Jean Valentine: A Symposium of the Work of Jean Valentine, 2014". 29 May 2014.
  18. ^ "Ploughshares at Emerson College, About Jean Valentine, by Amy Newman, Issue 107, winter 2007–2008".
  19. ^ Seelye, Katharine Q. (2021-01-07). "Jean Valentine, Minimalist Poet With Maximum Punch, Dies at 86". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-01-08.
  20. ^ NEA Literature Fellowships – Creative Writing Fellows

Bibliography

  • Publishers Weekly Review of Door in the Mountain by Reed Business Information (Accessed via the 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
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