Inventing an Alphabet was selected by Mary Oliver, as one of two co-winners of the 2004 Aldrich Poetry Prize. Oliver described Judith Valente's poetry as pointing to the "universe of the human mind." Offered "abundantly to metaphor," her poems embrace "an active and even frisky language" that engages us "in a kind of rickrack stroll, enjoying the fulsome ride toward summation." Several poems previously won individual prizes ("conjugating" was included in the Best Catholic Writing, 2004, and "Body and Soul" won the 2005 Jo-Anne Hirshfield Poetry Prize). Her writing has appeared in Afterhours, Folio, Tri-Quarterly, Rhino, and two anthologies.