@SheemaKalbasi Profile picture

Sheema Kalbasi

@SheemaKalbasi

Pushcart prize in poetry and PEN Award for Poetry in Translation nominee | also at @iranianwoman

Naomi Shihab Nye on Sheema Kalbasi’s latest book: “This book is a treasure. Sheema Kalbasi offers an exquisitely nourishing combination of simple, sustaining recipes recalled from her war-ravaged Iranian childhood, along with evocative poems asking essential questions - why so…

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Sheema Kalbasi Reposted

I've been getting a lot of requests to share this poem, especially these days, so here it is, friends. It's the opening poem of my new book, The Last Song of the World (@boaeditions). I hope it finds you if you need to hear it.


My new book, Spoon and Shrapnel, now available for preorder, blends poetry and recipes to capture the experience of surviving war through a child’s eyes. As a survivor myself, I share my wartime memories. darajapress.com/publication/sp…

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Sheema Kalbasi Reposted

All language is translation of the Spirit—which is to say, something is lost in all words in any language once communicated. I've come to view language, translated or otherwise, as mere gift wrapping.


“When unfinished humanity hisses in the womb, nostrils full of dirt, body parts that belong to some subhuman in the third world. My aim is to not pin peace to the chest as if it is a sliced steak.” From my poem Let's Dance Cha Cha Oil, first published in Echoes in Exile, 2006.

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Dancing Tango, published in the Yellow as Turmeric, Fragrant as Cloves, edited by Anne Marie Fowler, was set to music as an art song for mezzo-soprano and piano and performed at Old Dominion University.

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Within the collected works of the Yellow as Turmeric, Fragrant as Cloves, edited by Anne Marie Fowler, is my poem ‘Middle East.’

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Published in print and online this poem has been presented in many projects including Charter for Compassion, Get Lit classic slams and curriculum for educators.

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Southerly, Volume 76, 2016

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Listen to ‘Possession’ as a mezzo-soprano: on.soundcloud.com/3a78jdRVTgvok6…

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My Persian poems, though I also write love poetry, primarily focus on political prisoners, executions, and related themes. My Persian collection, titled Sangsar (Stoning), was published in 2005 in the United States due to my inability to be published inside Iran. Persian poetry…

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The Amusement Park With a kind of sad Look at the unwound sunglasses, The earrings— Half of their forlorn dance, half of a forgotten tale, As if mourning the split of the week, Spreading cream cheese Over sourdough bread’s parched crust. Weekends become the echo chamber…


In 1998, when the Taliban first seized power, I wrote the poem "For Women of Afghanistan." It has since been included in curricula across the glob, often alongside Khaled Hosseini’s literature in American and Canadian high schools. Artists have incorporated this poem into short…

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