Series: Camino del Sol | Publication Date: August 3, 2010
In 2004 twenty-eight women and young girls were murdered in Ciudad Juárez and the surrounding areas. The tragedy escalated to fifty-eight murders in 2006, then again to eighty-six in 2008, and current estimates top four hundred deaths. Now poet Valerie Martínez offers a poetic exploration of these events, pushing boundaries—stylistically and artistically—with vivid poems that contextualize femicide.
Martínez departs from traditional narrative to reveal the hidden effects and outcomes of the horrific and heart-wrenching cases of femicide. These poems—lyric fragments and prose passages that form a collage—have an intricate relation to one another, creating a complex literary quilt that feels like it can be read from the beginning, the end, or anywhere in between. Martínez is personally invested in the topic, evoking the loss of her sister, and Each and Her emerges as a biography of sorts and a compelling homage to all those who have suffered. Other authors may elaborate on or investigate this topic, but Martínez humanizes it by including names, quotations, realistic details, and stark imagery.
The women of Juárez, like other women around the world, are ravaged by inequality, discontinuity, politics, and economic plagues that contribute to gender violence. Martínez offers us a poignant and alarming glance into another world with these never-before-told stories. Her refreshing and explosive voice will keep readers transfixed and intrigued about these events and emotions—removed from us and yet so close to the heart.
"Martinez masterfully employs a unique form, compiling small poems and pieces of poems and found poems, as if gathering clues, or 'scraps / of women’s clothes' as if following a trail that would somehow lead her back to the girls and the women lost. Her adept use of white space and delicate emotion makes the prospect of turning away from the world she makes more difficult than following her more deeply into the text. . . . She demands that we regard the lives which have been—and continue to be—lost in the dark." —ForeWord Reviews
From the Inside Flap
Hundreds of women and young girls have been murdered in Ciudad Juárez in the last decade. Now poet Valerie MartÃnez departs from traditional narrative to reveal the hidden effects and outcomes of the horrific and heart-wrenching cases of femicide in lyric fragments and prose passages that form a vivid collage.
Valerie Martinez (b. 1961) is a poet, teacher, translator, playwright, librettist, editor and collaborative artist. Her 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 book-length poem, Each and Her, is forthcoming from the University of Arizona Press in the fall of 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).
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 has been included 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; 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).
Valerie has more than twenty years of experience as a classroom teacher, primarily at the college level. For over fifteen years, she has also taught children, young adults, adults, teachers, and seniors in a wide range of community programs. She 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. Recent projects include 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, 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.
Valerie is also Co-Coordinator (with Shelle Sanchez) of Women & Creativity Month, a month-long series of events that celebrate women's creativity--organized and presented by the National Hispanic Cultural Center in partnership with more than 40 organizations, artists, writers, and independently owned businesses with events in both Albuquerque and Santa Fe.
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 for 2008-2010.
This review is from: Each and Her (Camino del Sol) (Paperback)
Each and Her is a poem about the murders of over four hundred fifty girls and women in or near Juarez and Chihuahua Mexico since 1993. In spite of investigations and arrests, the murders continue. Some were students and some workers in maquiladoras which are factories or assembly plants, their murders linked with evidence of torture and mutilation. Maquiladora operators discriminate against pregnant women and demand their workers use birth control. If a worker is found to be pregnant, she is fired. These workers receive low wages and work long hours.
Some of the snippets are verses from the author, some of them are quotes and excerpts from poems or books.
Valerie Martinez lists some of the women's names, ages ranging from 7 through 60's.
The author's voice within these verses is sad as it tells the story of these lost women. Some of the pages have a single word such as sigame, which means follow me in Spanish. I found that while I was reading, those singular words would make an impact. They were perfectly placed within the poem.
This book is manufactured in the U.S. on acid-free, archival quality paper containing a minimum of 30% post consumer wasted and processed chlorine free.
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This review is from: Each and Her (Camino del Sol) (Paperback)
In her poem "Each and Her", Valerie Martinez stunningly illustrates both the debilitating sadness and the compelling beauty of these young women in northern Mexico. She does this with an eloquence that is captivating and once started, her poems are almost impossible to put down.
There are verses where, without the use of one single word, the awful emptiness brings tears. There are others where her admiration of their beauty evokes joy and a celebration of their brief lives.
A delightful book. This is a poem that needs to be read, a story that needs to be told. It is so rewarding to have happened upon such a treasure.
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This review is from: Each and Her (Camino del Sol) (Paperback)
I read the entirety of EACH AND HER in one sitting, something I rarely do. It was riveting, heart-breaking, memorable. An original and surprising stylistic choice to treat such subject matter, and very effective...the collage, fragments, found poems, the gardening blight metaphor all represent the subject, stories, the shocking official neglect, and the emotion powerfully. Pairing the part about Adam and Eve and Christ and Mary with the list of Marias was brilliant. Bravo!
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