Book description
Mimi Khalvati's Selected Poems draws on her three Carcanet
collections, In White Ink (1991), Mirrorwork (1995) and Entries on
Light (1997). It provides us with the essential Khalvati, from the
ambitiously wrought early formal poems, full of Persian and personal
shadows, through to the meditations in the long sequence Entries on
Light. She brings into English poetry distinct formal and tonal
elements of Persian and Islamic provenance. A mature eroticism marks
her poems; also, a feeling for nature in all its varieties. She is
partial to the long poem built out of distinct parts, the sequence or
series, from Plant Care in her first book to Entries on Light itself.
'Mimi Khalvati is one of the most poignant and graceful poets writing
in England currently.' - George Szirtes Mimi Khalvati was born in
Tehran and grew up on the Isle of Wight. She attended Drama Centre
London and worked as a theatre director in London and in Tehran. She is
the founder of The Poetry School where she now teaches. Carcanet publish
her six previous collections, including In White Ink (1991), Mirrorwork
(1995), Entries on Light (1997), The Chine (2002) and The Meanest Flower
(2007), which was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation 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.
