Reetika Vazirani

Reetika Vazirani (August 9, 1962 - July 16, 2003) was an American poet and educator.

Reetika Vazirani (1962-2002). Courtesy Wikipedia.

Reetika Vazirani
Born	1962 India
Died	July 16, 2003 Chevy Chase, Maryland, United States
Occupation	poet, academic
Genres	Poetry
Notable work(s)	White Elephants, World Hotel, Radha Says

Life

Youth and education

Vazirani was born in India in 1962, She came to the United States with her family in 1968.

After graduating from Wellesley College in 1984, she received a Thomas J. Watson fellowship to travel to India, Thailand, Japan, and China.

She earned an M.F.A. from the University of Virginia as a Hoyns Fellow.

Career

Vazirani lived in Trenton, New Jersey with her son Jehan, near poet Yusef Komunyakaa, who was her partner and Jehan's father.

She was a contributing and advisory editor for Shenandoah, a book review editor for Callaloo, and a senior poetry editor for Catamaran, a journal of South Asian literature. She translated poetry from Urdu, and some her poems were translated into Italian.

Vazirani was writer in residence at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, with the intent of joining the English department at Emory University at the time of her death

On July 16, 2003, Vazirani was housesitting in the Chevy Chase, Maryland, home of novelist Howard Norman and his wife, poet Jane Shore. There Vazirani took the life of her 2-year-old son, Jehan, followed by her own.

Writing

Vazirani was the author of 2 poetry collections, White Elephants (1996) and World Hotel (2002), winner of the 2003 Anisfield-Wolf book award.

She contributed a poem, "Mouth-Organs and Drums," to a Poets Against War anthology.

Vazirani's final collection of poetry, Radha Says, was published in the fall of 2009 by Drunken Boat Media, edited by Leslie McGrath and Ravi Shankar.

Recognition

• 2003, Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for World Hotel.
• 1996, Barnard New Women Poets Prize for White Elephants.

She was awarded a Discovery/The Nation Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Poets & Writers Exchange Program Award, fellowships from the Bread Loaf and Sewanee writers conferences.

She received the Glenna Luschei / Prairie Schooner Award for her essay, "The Art of Breathing," included in the anthology How We Live our Yoga (Beacon 2001).

She also had a poem in The Best American Poetry 2000.

Publications

Poetry

• White Elephants. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996.
• World Hotel. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2002.
• Radha Says: Last poems (edited by Leslie McGrath & Ravi Shankar; with foreword by Kazim Ali). Stonington, CT: Drunken Boat, 2010.

Anthologized

• The Beacon Best of 1999: Creative writing by women and men of all colors (edited by Ntozake Shange). Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2000.
• The Pushcart Prize 2000 (XIV): Best of the small presses (edited by Bill Henderson). Wainscott, N.Y. : Pushcart Press, 2000.
• Bold Words: A century of Asian American writing (edited by Esther Yae Iwanaga). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2001.
• Best of Prairie Schooner: Fiction and poetry (edited by Hilda Raz). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2001.
• The Beacon Best of 2001: Great writing by women and men of all colors and cultures (edited by Junot Diaz). Boston: Beacon Press, 2001.
• The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry (edited by Rita Dove). New York & London: Penguin, 2011.

Reetika Vazirani reading at "Lifelines- The Literature of Women's Human Rights" Event, 2003

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

Audio / video

• The Poetry Center presents Reetika Vazirani (VHS). Poetry Center, Smith College, 2003.

See also

• List of U.S. poets

External links

Poems

• "Mouth-Organs and Drums," from Poets Against War (excerpt)
• profile on ChickenBones: a Journal, with 2 poems
• Reetika Vazirani profile & 4 poems at the Academy of American Poets
• "Born", 10 poems from her final collection at the Drunken Boat

Books

• Reetika Vazirani at Amazon.com

About

• Poet of the Month: Reetika Vazirani, PoetryNet
• The Tragedy of Reetika Vazirani, About.com
• Reetika Vazirani at Murderpedia
• "Remembering Reetika Vazirani – A midnight wail across the cultural divide" at India Unfinished
• the initial report in the Washington Post about the murder/suicide
• "A Loss for Words: Reetika Vazirani, poet and professor, commits suicide at 40," College of New Jersey Signal, September 9, 2003. Web, Apr. 4, 2015.</ref>
• an article in the Washington Post, speculating about the murder/suicide
• "Remembering Reetika Vazirani: A midnight wail across the cultural divide" at India Unfinished

Etc.

• For our Sisterhood, a poem by Uma Parameswaran about Reetika Vazirani