Rachel Wetzsteon

{{Infobox writer  | name = Rachel Wetzsteon | image = Rachel Wetzsteon.jpg | image_size = | alt = | caption = | pseudonym = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{Birth date|1967|11|25}} | birth_place = New York City | death_date = {{Death date and age|2009|12|25|1967|11|25}} | death_place = New York City | resting_place = | occupation = | language = | nationality = American | ethnicity = | citizenship = | education = | alma_mater = Johns Hopkins University; Columbia University | period = | genre = Poetry | subject = | movement = | notableworks = | spouse = | partner = | children = | relatives = Ross Wetzsteon | awards = | signature = | signature_alt = | module = | website =  | portaldisp = }} '''Rachel Todd Wetzsteon''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|w|ɛ|t|s|t|oʊ|n}};<ref name="nytimes">{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/01/books/01wetzsteon.html| title=Rachel Wetzsteon, Poet of Keen Insights and Wit, Dies at 42| author=Margalit Fox| date=December 31, 2009| work=The New York Times}}</ref> November 25, 1967 – December 25, 2009) was an American poet.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.amherst.edu/aboutamherst/news/news_releases/2000/10_2000/node/9931|title=Poet Rachel Wetzseon To Read - Amherst College|work=amherst.edu}}</ref>

==Life== Born in New York City, New York, the daughter of editor and critic Ross Wetzsteon, she graduated from Yale University in 1989 where she studied with Marie Borroff and John Hollander. She graduated from Johns Hopkins University with an MA, and from Columbia University with a Ph.D. She taught at Barnard College.

She lived in Manhattan and went on to teach at William Paterson University<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://euphrates.wpunj.edu/faculty/parrasj/EngDeptWebpageEUPHRATES/Faculty.htm |title=William Paterson University |access-date=2010-01-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100614213451/http://euphrates.wpunj.edu/faculty/parrasj/EngDeptWebpageEUPHRATES/Faculty.htm |archive-date=2010-06-14 |url-status=dead}}</ref> and the Unterberg Poetry Center of the Ninety-Second Street Y.

Her work appeared in many publications including ''The New Yorker'',<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.newyorker.com/search/query?query=wetzsteon&queryType=nonparsed&submitbtn.x=35&submitbtn.y=9&submitbtn=Submit|title=The New Yorker|author=The New Yorker|magazine=The New Yorker }}</ref> ''The Paris Review'', ''The New Republic'',<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.tnr.com/article/thirty-three|title=From "Thirty-Three"|author=The New Republic|magazine=The New Republic|date=12 December 2005}}</ref> ''The Nation'',<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thenation.com/doc/20021021/poem|title=October 21, 2002|work=thenation.com}}</ref> and ''The Village Voice''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.villagevoice.com/authors/rachel-wetzsteon|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110227201232/http://www.villagevoice.com/authors/rachel-wetzsteon/|url-status=dead|archive-date=February 27, 2011|title=Rachel Wetzsteon - New York - Village Voice|work=villagevoice.com}}</ref> She was poetry editor of ''The New Republic''.

Wetzsteon committed suicide on Dec. 24 or early on the 25th, 2009.<ref name="nytimes" /><ref>{{cite magazine| url=http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/rachel-wetzsteon| title=In Memory, and Admiration, of Rachel Wetzsteon| author=Adam Kirsch| magazine=The New Republic| date=December 30, 2009 }}</ref> Since 2010, a writing prize has been offered in her memory in the Columbia University English Department.<ref>[http://www.columbia.edu/cu/english/announce.htm "DEPARTMENTAL & RELATED EVENTS"], ''Columbia University''</ref> Since 2014, the William Paterson University English Department's in-house literary journal, ''Map Literary'', has produced ''The Rachel Wetzsteon Chapbook Award '' every two years.<ref>[http://www.mapliterary.org/rachel-wetzsteon-chapbook-award.html "Rachel Wetzsteon Chapbook Award"], ''MapLiterary''</ref>

==Awards== * 2001 Witter Bynner Poetry Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters * Ingram Merrill grant * 1993 National Poetry Series, for ''Other Stars''

==Works== * [http://www.cortlandreview.com/issue/32/wetzsteon.html "Gold Leaves"; "Five-Finger Exercise", ''THE CORTLAND REVIEW'', ISSUE 32, June 2006] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20100105035026/http://verylikeawhale.wordpress.com/2006/09/07/rachel-wetzsteon/ "At the Zen Mountain Monastery", ''Very Like a Whale'', September 7, 2006 ] * {{cite journal| url=http://www.thenation.com/doc/20021021/poem| title=Pemberley| date=October 3, 2002| journal=The Nation}} * [https://web.archive.org/web/20100106030809/http://www.cstone.net/~poems/twopowet.htm "Manhattan Triptych"; "Sakura Park", Poetry Daily]

===Poetry=== * ''The Other Stars'' (Penguin, 1994) {{ISBN|978-0-14-058728-9}} * ''Home and Away'' (Penguin, 1998) {{ISBN|978-0-14-058892-7}} * ''Sakura Park'' (Persea, 2006) {{ISBN|978-0-89255-324-2}} * ''Silver Roses'' (Persea, 2010)

===Anthologies=== * Mark Jarman and David Mason, eds. (1996). Rebel Angels: 25 Poets of the New Formalism. Story Line Press. {{ISBN|1-885266-30-8}} * Gerald Costanzo and Jim Daniels, eds. (2000). American Poetry: The Next Generation. Carnegie Mellon University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-88748-337-0}} *{{cite book| chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zeyHlt71nq0C&q=Rachel+Wetzsteon&pg=PA418| chapter=Commands for the End of Summer; Blue Octavo Haiku; And This Time I Mean It| title=Bright pages: Yale writers 1701-2001| editor=J. D. McClatchy| publisher=Yale University Press| year=2001| isbn= 978-0-300-08944-8 }}

===Criticism=== * {{cite journal | url=http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5901 | title=Some Reflections on Eliot's "Reflections on Vers Libre": on Verse and Free Verse | website=poets.org | access-date=2009-05-20 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081225132154/http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5901 | archive-date=2008-12-25 | url-status=dead}} * [http://audensociety.org/21newsletter.html "Rachel Wetzsteon on Auden", ''NEWSLETTER 21'', The W. H. Auden Society, February 2001] * {{cite book| title=Influential Ghosts: A Study of Auden's Sources| publisher=Routledge| year= 2005| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5gBAM6JKZ8kC&q=Rachel+Wetzsteon| isbn= 978-0-415-97546-9 }} (reprint CRC Press, 2007) * {{cite journal| title=Ruskin's Whip | journal=Parnassus |date=January 1, 2005 | url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-826116511.html| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121025155243/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-826116511.html| url-status=dead| archive-date=October 25, 2012}} * [http://www.poetrysociety.org/psa/poetry/crossroads/on_poetry/poets_on_form_rachel_wetzsteon/ "Marvellous Sapphics", ''Poetry Society: "Crossroads"'', Fall 1999]

===Editor=== * ''Virginia Woolf, Night and Day'' (Barnes and Noble Classics, 2005) * {{cite book| title=The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson| publisher=Barnes and Noble Classics| year= 2003| isbn= 978-1-56619-030-5| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ulsyzfa0TssC&q=Rachel+Wetzsteon }}

==References== {{reflist|2}}

==External links== *[https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/01/books/01wetzsteon.html?ref=obituaries "Rachel Wetzsteon, Poet of Keen Insights and Wit, Dies at 42"], ''New York Times'', December 31, 2009 *[http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2010/01/02/rachel_wetzsteon_poet_mixed_melancholy_wit/ "Rachel Wetzsteon, poet mixed melancholy, wit"], ''Boston Globe'', January 2, 2010 *[http://everseradio.com/e-verse-is-deeply-saddened-by-the-death-of-the-poet-rachel-wetzsteon/ "E-Verse is deeply saddened by the death of the poet Rachel Wetzsteon", ''E-Verse Radio''] *[http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?p=137391 "Rachel Wetzsteon dead", ''Eratosphere''] *[http://thebestamericanpoetry.typepad.com/the_best_american_poetry/2010/01/remembering-rachel-wetzsteon.html "Remembering Rachel Wetzsteon"], ''The Best American Poetry'', January 8, 2010 *[https://web.archive.org/web/20100106052230/http://www.theparisreview.com/viewaudio.php/prmMID/5296 "Home and Away." The Paris Review sessions, Issue 143, Summer 1997]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wetzsteon, Rachael}} Category:William Paterson University faculty Category:1967 births Category:2009 suicides Category:Yale University alumni Category:Barnard College faculty Category:Johns Hopkins University alumni Category:Columbia University alumni Category:20th-century American poets Category:The New Republic people Category:The Village Voice people Category:American women academics Category:2009 deaths Category:21st-century American women Category:Suicides in New York City Category:20th-century American women poets