Poet’s Bio: Pat Valdata is a poet and novelist. Her poetry book about women aviation pioneers, Where No Man Can Touch, won the 2015 Donald Justice Poetry Prize. A revised edition of this book was published in June 2023 (Wind Canyon Books) and won third prize from the Delaware Press Association. Her poetry has appeared in anthologies and literary magazines including Ecotone, Ekphrastic Review, Italian Americana, Little Patuxent Review, North American Review, Passager, and Valparaiso Poetry Review.
She
has received three Individual Artist Awards in poetry from the Maryland State
Arts Council, two nominations for the Pushcart Prize, and a grant from the Mid
Atlantic Arts Foundation. She lives in Crisfield, Maryland, with her husband,
Bob Schreiber, and a rescue poodle named Junior. Information about all her
books is on her website: www.patvaldata.com.
Deliah
Lawrence: Is there any particular poet, author or book that influenced you in
any way either growing up or as an adult?
Pat
Valdata: There
are three. When I was a senior in high school, our English Literature teacher,
Ron Cecere, conducted an unofficial poetry appreciation club for several of us
after school. We lived in central new Jersey, so my friends and I could easily
take a bus into New York City. Thanks to Mr. Cecere, we started going to New
York bookstores like Doubleday, Scribner’s, and Brentano’s (may they rest in
peace) to buy poetry books. I still have the first ones I got: Laurel Poetry
Series editions of Whitman and Poe, edited by Richard Wilbur. They cost all of
$0.40 each!
The
first poet who influenced my own writing was Denise Levertov. I was lucky
enough to take a weekend-long workshop with her back in the 1980s. She taught
us to notice small details and render them accurately without using clichés.
She didn’t tolerate sloppy or lazy writing!
The
third poet who influenced me is Mark Doty. He was my thesis advisor when I was
studying for an MFA at Goddard College. Although I was majoring in fiction, he
read some of my poetry and encouraged me to keep writing it. I’ll always be
grateful for that. (And I’m devastated that Goddard, which invented the
low-residency MFA program, is closing.)
DL: If
you were hosting a dinner party which three poets would be your dream guests
and why?
PV: It’s hard to narrow the list to
only three! First, I’d invite e.e. cummings. I love how he played with
typography and form. His work was innovative and original in a way that can’t
ever happen again, because he did it first. I’d also invite Emily Dickinson, so
I could pick her brain about her writing process. She makes such creative leaps
in her poetry, which may look simple on the surface, but it’s often much, much
more. Finally, I’d invite Elizabeth Bishop. Her work is full of visual and
auditory imagery, and she makes it feel effortless, although of course it
isn’t. I’d love to talk to her about word choice and rhythm. And she had a
great recipe for brownies, so I’d ask her to bring some. Yum.
DL: What
are three fun facts about yourself?
PV: I’ve loved aviation for as long as I can remember. When I was a little girl, I used to look up every time I heard an airplane or jet flying overhead. When I was in my twenties, I took flying lessons, first in gliders, then in airplanes, and became a licensed pilot and a few years later an instructor in gliders. I’m a founding member of the Women Soaring Pilots Association (https://womensoaring.org/). I don’t get the chance to fly very often nowadays, but I still look up every time I hear an airplane take off.
I
also write novels and have three books out, all published by small presses. Crosswind
is about women soaring pilots: a student and her instructor. The Other
Sister is a family saga about two sisters in love with the same man. Eve’s
Daughters is a pair of novellas I wrote riffing off Miltons’s Paradise
Lost. I’m currently working on my fourth novel, set during WWII.
I’m a dog person, and I especially
love poodles because they’re so smart and fun-loving. They also don’t shed,
which is great because I’m allergic to other dog breeds. My husband and I have
had four standard poodles (the big ones) and currently have a miniature poodle
(the mid-size) we got from a rescue group. The famous quote from A Midsummer
Night’s Dream applies to her: “And though she be but little, she is fierce”!
DL: In celebration of National
Poetry Month, can you share with us a few of your poems?
PV: Here’s a link to The Poet and the
Poem, an interview and reading with Grace Cavalieri
https://youtu.be/2oKMbcRO9YY
This interview is going to the moon as part of the Lunar Codex!
Aubade
We sleep through the quiet
dawn songs of robins and
bluebirds, through staccato
chipping-sparrow trills,
the cardinal’s cheer, cheer,
cheer. When laughing gulls
begin their raucous salute
to the sun, we come awake,
somewhat surprised to be
here, forty-plus years after
we shacked up, two lanky
and optimistic kids unable
to imagine ourselves this
old, when this old was years
younger than we are today.
We creak out of bed, make
coffee, sit on the back porch,
watch the gulls who only last
week returned to us to nest.
Another anniversary looms.
Another spring morning rises,
like birds, from the dew.
Published in Little Patuxent Review, Issue 32, Summer 2022, p. 35
DL: Where can readers learn more about
you and your poetry?
PV: Readers can get more information
here:
- Website: www.patvaldata.com
- Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/author/patvaldata
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/patricia.valdata
- Book Buy Links:
Also in The Greyhound Bookshop, Berlin, MD; The Bookplate, Chestertown, MD; Selkie Books, Rock Hall, MD.
DL: Thanks so much for being here with us today. I know my readers will enjoy getting to know you and your work.
PV: Thank you for asking me to be featured in your blog. I am beyond happy about it!
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