Jean Valentine

Jean Valentine was born in Chicago, Illinois, on April 27, 1934, to John and Jean Purcell Valentine. Later, the family moved to Massachusetts, where Valentine attended Milton Academy Girls' School. In 1952 Valentine entered Radcliffe College, and majored in English. In December 1955, a Harvard University student publication, The Harvard Advocate, published her Poem, which received a favorable review in The Harvard Crimson (January 10, 1956). Valentine graduated cum laude in June 1956. Valentine married James Chace in 1957 and was later divorced; they had two daughters, Sarah (b.1958) and Rebecca (b.1960). A second marriage in 1991 to artist Barrie Cooke, also ended in divorce. In 1964, a collection of her poems won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award, chosen over 300 other entries; it was published in 1965 as Dream Barker and Other Poems .

Valentine has taught poetry at 92nd Street Young Men's Hebrew Association, Sarah Lawrence College, Hunter College, City University of New York, Pierson College at Yale University, Swarthmore College, Barnard College, Bucknell University, American University, Columbia University, and the University of Pittsburgh. She has also won various awards and fellowships including: the Rockefeller Fellowship, the Bunting Institute Fellowship, the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, the Shelley Memorial Prize (2000), the National Book Award for Poetry (2004), and the Jean Kennedy Smith New York University Creative Writing Award of Distinction (2005).

Valentine's other published works include: Pilgrims (1969); Ordinary Things (1974); Turn (1977); The Messenger (1979); Home.Deep.Blue (1989); Night Lake (1992); The River at Wolf (1992); Night Porch: Poems (1995); The Under Voice: Selected Poems (1995); Growing Darkness, Growing Light (1997); The Cradle of the Real Life (2000); The Lighthouse Keeper: Essays on the Poetry of Eleanor Ross Taylor (2001); and Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems 1965-2003 (2004).

From the guide to the Papers, 1952-2004 (inclusive), 1970-2004 (bulk)., (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)