Under her light touch, each of Mimi Khalvati’s 56 sonnets evolves in a spontaneous-seeming way, like something between intimate speech and thinking aloud. Within her favoured form – two quatrains rhyming on alternate lines followed by two triplets which rhyme in various ways across the triplet division – she makes skilful use of different kinds of half rhyme, so full rhyme comes and goes as if naturally, rather than being a formal given.

The arc of the book reflects the course of the poet’s own life, starting with her exile from Iran and family at six, the loss of her mother … Continue Reading