You really want to use a Hash of Arrays (HoA in the common parlance):

my %use;

$use{'valpt'} = [];
$use{'valpt'}[0] = 'whatever';
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see perldsc and perlref for more on this.

Update: For a vigourous explanation of why the OP doesn't want to do what he think he does see Why it's stupid to `use a variable as a variable name'.

/J\