Mimi Khalvati

Poet and editor

A woman with shoulder-length grey hair seated in front of curtains Mimi Khalvati, by Madeleine Waller, 13 April 2006, NPG x132071, © Madeleine Waller / National Portrait Gallery, London

Born in Tehran, Khalvati grew up on the Isle of Wight. Her collections include In White Ink (1991), Mirrorwork (1995) and The Chine (2002). The Meanest Flower (2007) was a Financial Times Book of the Year, and shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. She received a Cholmondeley Award in 2006 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Countries we revisited later; countries
we reclaimed, disowned again, caught between
two alphabets, the back and front of letters.

From ‘Writing Letters’ in Poetry Review90.1 (Spring 2000)

There are many kinds of silence,
none more radiant that the sun’s.

From ‘Don’t Ask Me, Love, for that First Love’ in Child: New and Selected Poems 1991-2011 (Manchester: Carcanet, 2011)