Mimi Khalvati was born in Tehran, Iran, and grew up on the Isle of Wight, England. She attended the Drama Centre London and then worked as an actor and director in Iran and the UK. Khalvati is the author of eight poetry collections, including The Weather Wheel, The Meanest Flower, and, most recently, Child: New and Selected Poems 1991-2011. She co-founded The Poetry School - the UK’s largest provider of poetry education and opportunities to poets and poetry audiences - and was the Coordinator from 1997–2004. She remains a core tutor for the School and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2009. Her work has been translated into nine languages and is highly regarded. In 2006 she received a Cholmondeley Award. Of some of her early influences, she cites Wordsworth and her childhood on the Isle of Wight as ‘very much the wellspring of my poetry’.
