Mirrorwork
In "Mirrorwork", her second collection, Mimi Khalvati takes the Islamic art of mirror-mosaic – found in palaces, barber shops, kebab houses – as metaphor. The shorter poems refract one another, the three long sequences act as a mirror triptych, their themes – of art, nature, domestic life and memory, east and west – drawing the other poems together.
In a mirror-mosaic you search for your reflection but can't find it whole, only flickering, variegated, fragmented, as on television when a pattern is played across a face to preserve anonymity, while the voice discloses what the picture conceals. In "Mirrorwork" Khalvati at once establishes a voice and questions its integrity. It is a book about becoming, as the poet's children leave home and she must find a changed self and purpose, a new space.
In a mirror-mosaic you search for your reflection but can't find it whole, only flickering, variegated, fragmented, as on television when a pattern is played across a face to preserve anonymity, while the voice discloses what the picture conceals. In "Mirrorwork" Khalvati at once establishes a voice and questions its integrity. It is a book about becoming, as the poet's children leave home and she must find a changed self and purpose, a new space.
About the author
Born in Tehran in 1944, Mimi Khalvati grew up on the Isle of Wight and attended the Drama Centre, London. She then worked as a theatre director in Tehran, translating from English into Farsi and devising new plays, as well as co-founding the Theatre in Exile group. She now lives in Hackney and is a Visiting Lecturer at Goldsmiths College and a director of the London Poetry School. Carcanet publish her six previous collections, including "In White Ink" (1991), "Mirrorwork" (1995) and "The Chine" (2002).