Sheema Kalbasi

Sheema Kalbasi is an Iranian-Danish-American poet, writer, and humanitarian. She is a Pushcart Prize–winning poet, a recipient of a United Nations humanitarian award, and a grantee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands.

Her books include Echoes in Exile (PRA Publishing, 2006), selected for Stony Brook University’s Women and Gender Studies curriculum; Seven Valleys of Love (PRA Publishing, 2008); The Poetry of Iranian Women (Reel Content, 2008); Spoon and Shrapnel (Daraja Press, 2024); and Jahan Malek Khatun: The Princess Poet of Fourteenth-Century Persia (Daraja Press, 2026).

Her work has appeared in The Kenyon Review and the Pushcart Prize Anthology, and has been featured by PEN America, Writer’s Digest, and PBS. It has been adapted into music, visual art, and short films, and performed internationally at venues including the Smithsonian National Museum, the United Nations World Food Programme, and the Canadian Parliament.

Kalbasi is also a dedicated advocate for human rights and freedom of expression.