Sheema Kalbasi
Sheema Kalbasi is an Iranian-Danish-American poet and writer who addresses issues of feminism, war, refugees, human rights, and freedom of expression. She is also a filmmaker focusing on women's issues and activism for women's rights, minority rights, children's rights, and refugees' rights. Kalbasi grew up in the Middle East, South Asia, and Europe, and now makes her home in the United States.
Biography
Sheema Kalbasi is a poet, literary translator, and humanitarian whose work has garnered international recognition. She has taught refugee children and worked with organizations such as the UNHCR, the Center for Refugees in Pakistan, and UNA Denmark. In Denmark, she also trained and served as a defense soldier.Her poetry has been anthologized and translated into over twenty languages, earning critical acclaim. In 2012, Canadian Senator LGen the Hon. Roméo Dallaire concluded a speech on the situation in Iran by reciting excerpts from her poem, Hezbollah. A winner of Harvest International, the poem has also been anthologized and published amongst others in The Forbidden: Poems from Iran and its Exiles, the Atlanta Review, and Iranian and Diasporic Literature in the 21st Century: A Critical Study by Dr. Daniel Grassian. In 2025, Sheema Kalbasi was named one of the top ten influential American poets of the 21st century, alongside Joy Harjo, Ada Limón, and Tracy K. Smith, in To Write of This Country and Reckon with America through Contemporary Women Poets by Dr. Thayer Wescott. Her poem The Passenger was selected by invitation for performance at the Tribute World Trade Center in New York in 2008. In 2016, her poems Possession and Dancing Tango were adapted into an art song for mezzo-soprano and piano and performed at Old Dominion University in Virginia. Kalbasi’s poetry and translations have been incorporated into academic curricula worldwide, adapted into short films, and set to music for soprano and piano trio compositions. A notable performance of a composition based on her work took place at the Smithsonian National Museum. Her poem Refuge, originally featured in her poetry collection Spoon and Shrapnel, is a Pushcart Prize winner and was selected for inclusion in the 2026 Pushcart Prize anthology.
Kalbasi is the author of the full-length poetry collection Echoes in Exile, which has been featured on Stony Brook University’s Women and Gender Studies reading list. A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and a nominee for the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation, she has received a United Nations humanitarian award and grants from the Netherlands’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
As part of her scholarly work, Kalbasi has introduced numerous Persian poets to English-speaking audiences. In first published by PRA Publishing in 2007 with a subsequent edition in 2008, she presented the first English translations of the 14th-century ghazal writer Jahan Malek Khatun, alongside other women poets from Iran’s literary tradition. She also translated the poetry of Simin Behbahani, a two-time Nobel Prize nominee in Literature, which was set to music by composer Ramin Amin Tafreshi in the Netherlands. Her translation of Forough Farrokhzad's poetry was included in The Kenyon Review in celebration of Farrokhzad's ninetieth birthday. Her work has also been featured by, PEN America and NPR. Notably, acclaimed poet Naomi Shihab Nye writes about Kalbasi's Spoon and Shrapnel: Verse and Wartime Recipes : “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 much war?”
In 2019, she was invited to Rome as the main speaker at the United Nations World Food Programme, where she delivered an address on the impact of poverty on families' decisions to marry off their underage children, highlighting it as a global issue affecting the Middle East, South Asia, South America, and even the United States, where underage marriage persists in certain states.
In 2009, Kalbasi joined 266 Iranian academics, writers, artists, and journalists in signing an open letter of apology published on Iranian.com condemning the persecution of Baháʼís.
Freedom of Speech and Political Advocacy
Kalbasi is an advocate for freedom of expression and a vocal critic of totalitarian regimes and systemic oppression. Through her writings and international advocacy, she confronts state censorship, gender apartheid, and the political machinery designed to erase marginalized voices. Kalbasi’s work bears witness to the silencing of women and minorities, exposing the violent foundations of theocratic rule, particularly under the Islamic Republic of Iran. Her commitment to dissent is not theoretical; it is lived, unflinching, and global in its reach, grounded in the conviction that literature must resist tyranny and uphold the dignity of the silenced.Gender and Advocacy
Kalbasi’s work addresses, forced veiling, honor killings, underage marriage, self-immolation, acid attacks, the persecution of homosexuals, blasphemy laws, food shortages, and hunger. These issues are central to her creative and public life. Kalbasi challenges the structures that sustain violence and silence, advocating for dignity and human rights worldwide.Books
- Jahan Malek Khatun: The Princess Poet of 14th-Century Persia
- Spoon and Shrapnel: Verse and Wartime Recipes
- The Poetry of Iranian Women
- Seven Valleys of Love: A Bilingual Anthology of Women Poets from Medieval Persia to Present-Day Iran
- Echoes in Exile – A full-length poetry collection.
- Sangsar
Awards
- Human Rights Award and Recognition, Center for Refugees, UNHCR, Islamabad, Pakistan
- Refuge, Pushcart Prize
- Hezbollah, from Echoes in Exile, Best Poem, Harvest International.
- The Passenger, third place, Jersey works.
- Echoes in Exile, Collection,, 2008
- Echoes in Exile, Pushcart Prize, 2008
- Seven Valleys of Love, The PEN Award for Poetry in Translation, 2008
- Seven Valleys of Love, Pushcart Prize, 2008
- Seven Valleys of Love,, 2008