About
"There is an intimacy in these poems that cannot be taught." - Davidson Foundation Fellowship Selection Committee
"Your poems make me feel like I can fight someone" - a friend
"Your poems make me feel like I can fight someone" - a friend
Irene Vázquez is a poet, editor, and journalist from Houston, Texas. She is a senior at Yale, where she is a member of WORD: Performance Poetry at Yale.
She is interested in the poetics of redress, belonging, and global liberation, generally through the lens of Black Studies. She is part of the 2021 cohort of Mellon Mays-Bouchet Fellows at Yale; her project seeks to understand how French Caribbean poetics can provide a model for thinking beyond sovereignty.
Irene is a Pushcart Prize nominated writer and a 2017 Davidson Fellow in Literature for her project "Ebb and Flow: Translating Lives in Transition."
When she's not writing, she likes drinking coffee, watching Queen Sugar and reminding folks that the South has something to say.
She is interested in the poetics of redress, belonging, and global liberation, generally through the lens of Black Studies. She is part of the 2021 cohort of Mellon Mays-Bouchet Fellows at Yale; her project seeks to understand how French Caribbean poetics can provide a model for thinking beyond sovereignty.
Irene is a Pushcart Prize nominated writer and a 2017 Davidson Fellow in Literature for her project "Ebb and Flow: Translating Lives in Transition."
When she's not writing, she likes drinking coffee, watching Queen Sugar and reminding folks that the South has something to say.
Selected Awards and Commendations
- We Need Diverse Books Internship Grantee, 2020
- Edward A. Bouchet Fellow, 2021 cohort
- Davidson Fellow (Literature), 2017
- The Davidson Fellows Scholarship recognizes young people under the age of 18 who have completed an original, significant piece of work with the potential to make a positive contribution to society
- Finalist, Houston Youth Poet Laureate, 2016
- Finalist, Where Are You Poet Chapbook Contest, 2016
- Maddy Summer Artist Award, Creative Writing, 2016
- Runner Up, Glass Mountain Prose and Poetry Contest, 2016
- Honorable Mention, Princeton High School Poetry Contest, 2016
- Nominated for Pushcart Prize, 2015
- Nominated by Gravel Magazine
