Sheema Kalbasi (born November 20, 1972, in Tehran, Iran) is a human right activist, an award winning poet, and literary translator. She is the President and head of Research & Writing Department at Reel Content Productions, a film production company with an exclusive focus on human rights. She is the director of Dialogue of Nations through Poetry in Translation, director of Poetry of Iranian Women Project, the poetry editor of The Muse Apprentice Guild and the co- director of the Other Voices International. She has authored two collections of poems, Echoes in Exile in English, and Sangsar (Stoning) in Persian. Kalbasi's work has appeared in numerous magazines, literary reviews, anthologies, and has been translated into several languages. She is one of the few literary figures to promote poets of Iranian heritage as well as international poets to English speaking audiences. Kalbasi's work is distinguished by her passionate defense of the ethnic and religious minorities' rights.
She has worked for the United Nations and the Center for non Afghan Refugees in Pakistan, and in Denmark. Today she lives with her husband and daughter in the United States.
New England Children are playing next to the ocean coast and sand castles are built with their digging hands symphonized with their joyous laughter. Near the beach, sea rocks are thirsty to move from sitting next to the New England attic rooms. The air is cooling down and the little kids are now nesting on the rocks, trying to get away from the cool summer breeze, chilled afternoon winds and the dancing waves. My little girl is one of the children, and with dreamy eyes she is pretending to be waving at the Beluga Whales, the wave makers of the sea ... from coast to coast. The beach and the people are getting ready for today's close-up and I hear my voice: "Dokhtaram, Bia!" We have to say goodbye to the sea and the whales. Her little body fully clothed floats across the air, arms in the hands of her father and after two more rotations, is satisfied to close her wings for the evening ride. She slips the shelves and shadows of her new found friends within the walls of her night's dream before another summer-morning lights the start of the day for her to watch the length of her footsteps on the sands next to the white waters and dancing waves. Dokhtaram, Bia: in Persian it means, "Come my girl" ------- Nothing Nothing is all I am Nothing overloading nothing Closing the doors, Opening an extra into an empty space, Nothing ensues but a further war. The bombs, lights that blind and Damascus, Burning after Tehran. Sisters calling in despair, Brothers callous the arms of infidels. Nothing happens But children die, and journalists are filming for a deadline. Nothing comes after nothing but I, Kneel, cry for nothing, and still the no shepherd birds burn at flight. Nothing happens. I walk by the Central Park Next to nothing, and the no flight zone is Just nothing yet throat slides over throat, Bullets shut and blood drops. Here nothing happens But I write to keep nothing from overloading nothing.Links
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