Mimi Khalvati was born in 1944 in Tehran and grew up on the Isle of Wight where she went to boarding school. After training at drama school in London, she worked as an actor and as a director at the Theatre Workshop Tehran and fringe theatre in London.
She began writing poetry while at home with her children. Her collection Persian Miniatures(Smith/Doorstop 1990) was a winner of the Poetry Business competition 1989. Her Carcanet collections include White Ink (1991), and Mirrorwork (1995), Entries on Light (1997) and The Chine (2002). The Meanest Flower (2007) was a Financial Times Book of the Year, and shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize. Child: New and Selected Poems 1991-2011 was a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. Her most recent collection, The Weather Wheel is a PBS Recommendation. Mimi is the founder of ‘The Poetry School’ and has co-edited its anthologies of new writing, Tying the Song (2000), Entering the Tapestry (2003) and I Am Twenty People! (2007.
Mimi has been Poet in Residence at the Royal Mail and has held fellowships at the Royal Literary Fund at City University, the International Writing Program in Iowa, and the American School in London. She received a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors in 2006 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
She has performed her work extensively in Britain, Europe, Turkey and the USA, taking part in international festivals such as Poetry International at the South Bank Centre, British Council Tours abroad and a national tour of Contemporary British Poetry. She is a tutor for ‘The Poetry School’ and a freelance creative writing teacher.
