Poetry

Jean Valentine (1934–2020) published numerous poetry collections, including Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems 1965–2003, awarded the 2004 National Book Award for Poetry; Break the Glass; and Shirt in Heaven. The recipient as well of the Wallace Stevens Award and the Shelley Memorial Award, she taught at Sarah Lawrence College, New York University, and Columbia.

Photograph by Max Greenstreet.

Five Poems

by Jean Valentine


The Treeless Hill

The treeless hill that gave holes
in its dirt cliff to the swallows
in the long wet light of June, the open
cliff by the road that gave
them nests, your cold wet sweater,
sweater you were born in, softer then,
like any swallow

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