Reetika Vazirani

Reetika Gina Vazirani (9 August 1962 – 16 July 2003)

Vazirani lived in Trenton, New Jersey, with her son Jehan, near the poet Yusef Komunyakaa, who was her partner and Jehan's father.^[4] There she taught creative writing as a visiting faculty member at The College of New Jersey.^[5] At the time of her death, 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.^[6] On 16 July 2003, Vazirani was housesitting in the Chevy Chase, Maryland,^[4] home of novelist Howard Norman and his wife, the poet, Jane Shore. There, Vazirani killed her two-year-old son, Jehan, by stabbing him multiple times, then fatally stabbed herself.^{[7][8][9][10]}

Works

Vazirani was the author of two poetry collections, White Elephants,^[11] winner of the 1995 Barnard New Women Poets Prize, and World Hotel (Copper Canyon Press, 2002),^[12] 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 of her poems translated into Italian.^[13][14]

Her poem "Mouth-Organs and Drums" was published in the anthology Poets Against the War (

Vazirani's final collection of poetry, Radha Says, edited by Leslie McGrath and Ravi Shankar, was published in 2009 by Drunken Boat Media.^[16]

Awards

• 2003, Anisfield-Wolf Book Award^[17]
• 1995, Barnard Women Poets Prize

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,"^[18] included in the anthology How We Live our Yoga (Beacon 2001). She also had a poem in The Best American Poetry 2000.^[19]

References