Sheema Kalbasi (Persian: شیما کلباسی; born November 20, 1972, in Tehran, Iran) is an Iranian-Danish-American poet and writer who addresses issues of feminism, war, refugees, human rights, and freedom of expression.
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.
Kalbasi is the author of the full-length poetry collection Echoes in Exile[6] (PRA Publishing, USA, 2006), which has been featured on Stony Brook University’s Women and Gender Studies reading list.
Notably, acclaimed poet Naomi Shihab Nye writes about Kalbasi's Spoon and Shrapnel: Verse and Wartime Recipes[8] (Daraja Press, Canada, 2024): “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.