Reetika Vazirani

Infobox Writer
name = Reetika Vazirani


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genre = Poetry
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notableworks = "White Elephants"
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Reetika Vazirani (1962-2003) was an American poet. On July 16, 2003, while housesitting in Washington, D.C., she murdered her two-year-old son, Jehan, and took her own life, both by stabbing.

She was born in India in 1962, came to the US 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 also received an M.F.A. from the University of Virginia as a Hoyns Fellow.

She was a recipient of a Discovery/The Nation Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Poets & Writers Exchange Program Award, fellowships from the Bread Loaf and Sewanee writers conferences, 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". She was the author of two poetry collections, "White Elephants", winner of the 1995 Barnard New Women Poets Prize, and [http://www.spdbooks.org/Details.asp?BookID=1556591837 "World Hotel"] (2002), winner of the 2003 Anisfield-Wolf book award. 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 had some her poems translated into Italian.

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

She lived in Trenton, New Jersey with her son Jahan, near her partner, poet Yusef Komunyakaa. She 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 she committed her murder/suicide.

External links

* [http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8730-2003Jul17?language=printer the initial report in the Washington Post] about the murder/suicide
* [http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A30475-2004Feb10&notFound=true an article in the Washington Post] , speculating about the murder/suicide
* [http://www.nathanielturner.com/reetikavazirani.htm a profile on ChickenBones: a Journal] , with two poems
* [http://www.poetsagainstthewar.org/displaypoem.asp?AuthorID=1592#453057478 the text of Mouth-Organs and Drums] , from "Poets Against War"
* [http://www.sawnet.org/books/writing/sisterhood.html For our Sisterhood] , a poem by Uma Parameswaran about Reetika Vazirani