Carcanet Press - The Meanest Flower

Description
Excerpt
Author
Awards
Reviews

As if they were family, flowers surround you.
As if they were a story-book, they speak.
They speak through eyes and strange configurations
on their faces, markings on petals, whiskers...

from 'The Meanest Flower'

Wordsworth's 'meanest flower that blows' suggested to him 'thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears'. The lyrics, elegies, songs and ghazals in Mimi Khalvati's new book pay attention to things the imagination generally disregards, an attention that is concentrated, intense and unapologetically Romantic. Hers is the true voice of feeling, undeflected by irony or self-deprecation. There is rapture in these poems as well as a tragic sense: nature, childhood, motherhood and family relationships all have a double valency, a give and take, to which Khalvati witnesses with a feeling sharpened by love and grief.

Mimi Khalvati was born in Tehran, Iran, and grew up on the Isle of Wight. She has lived most of her life in London. After training at Drama Centre London, she worked as an actor in the UK and as a director at the Theatre Workshop Tehran and on the fringe ... read more

Awards won by Mimi Khalvati Winner, 2023 The King's Gold Medal for Poetry
Winner, 2019 Poetry Book Society Winter Wild Card (Afterwardness) Winner, 2014 Poetry Book Society Recommendation (The Weather Wheel) Winner, 2011 Poetry Book Society Special Commendation (Child) Short-listed, 2007 The T.S. Eliot Prize (The Meanest Flower)

This open and generous readiness to engage with all realities and see their worth gives Khalvati her power... graceful accomplishment is always in the service of a fundamental seriousness.
Bernard O'Donoghue, Poetry London
A lovely book, so accomplished, various, comprehensive and abundant. The poems are quick and touching, joyfully and sorrowfully open to the phenomena of the real world, they say what it feels like being human, the good and the ill of it, with passion, tact and lightness.
David Constantine Khalvati's writing draws on diverse worlds and poetic traditions, and enriches the dominant culture of British poetry...Intricate, sensuous and vulnerable...Mimi Khalvati's work will endure.
Moniza Alvi, Poetry Wales
Mimi Khalvati is one of the most poignant and graceful poets writing in England currently. The Meanest Flower speaks often of grief and loss but also of great pleasure in the world, in gardens, in loves, in other people. Under the lyricism there is an iron control that achieves its grace through subtlety. There reader is aware one is in the presence of a mind, a heart and an ear that has been schooled in depth, that finds it as naturally as do the flowers of the title.
George Szirtes
Khalvati writes exquisitely nuanced lyrics of love and loss, which draw on childhood, motherhood and the natural world. These [The Meanest Flower] are tender poems in the English Romantic tradition.
No. 3 in 'The Ten Best New poetry collections' - Independent, 2007
Praise for Mimi Khalvati 'This generous, expansive volume affirms Khalvati's place as one of the UK's most accomplished lyric poets.'
Jennifer Lee Tsai, The Guardian
'The marvel of these poems is in their pure lyric flow â like shining a torch around a dark room. Each poem is wonderfully adroit, capturing, often with child-like relish, the touch of the world.'
Maitreyabandhu, Poem 'She has the ability to find the sublime in art, the capacity to transform things into something that seems lasting... single moments of light in the face of encroaching darkness.'
Kwame Dawes, Poetry Review
'... [m]ystical and down-to-earth, innovative and approachable, precise in visual detail but roomy in vision...'
Carol Rumens, The Guardian 'Khalvati's method is never formulaic and is always open to experience.'
W S Milne, Agenda
'What I find remarkable is how little ego there is in this exploration, how sensitively and empathetically Khalvati looks out to the experience of other people, mixing hers with theirs so that the two often become indistinguishable'
Edmund Prestwich, The North
'This collection has so many layers and cross-currents. There are rich memories hiding here'
D A Powell, Under the Radar
'Poetry of the highest order'
John Wheway, The High Window

'What is particularly striking throughout the collection is how the poems are able to move through time in relation to one's age, life or nationality.'

Anthony Anaxagorou, PBS Winter Selection 2019

'In so many of these poems, the images frame and enunciate the character of an exiles life with tremendous resonance. The recurrent, deeply traditional formal design of the Petrarchan sonnet grounds the collection and provides a containing experience of consistency and reliability that contrasts with all the disorientation, the displacement, the endless efforts to make a new home that never quite yield a secure sense of belonging....This is a collection in which I have been grateful to immerse myself.'

John Wheway, The High Window

'This book feels a little like an act of self-haunting ... like tender postcards from afar, addressed to the poet herself'

Michael Glover, The Tablet

'Colour combines with contemplation [...] The symmetry is elegant, and the collection is a sophisticated, original exploration of a self made in and by the new language'

Fiona Sampson, The Guardian

'I found these sonnets to be exquisite and remarkable, not only for Mimi Khalvati's formal virtuosity but also for her bold and brilliant charting of new ground, in exploring the energies of absence, silence and unknowing. The poet's ear in these poems is attuned not to obvious noise but to night sounds, faint traces, on those whose lives lack narrative or 'underscript'. These poems are playful, moving and brimming with a fierce intelligence., and in this collection, her ninth, Mimi Khalvati is writing at the very height of her lyric power.'
Hannah Lowe
'Poems of extraordinary rigour and sensitivity. I know of no other contemporary poet who combines, so consistently and so deftly, the formal requirements of metre and rhyme, with the poets' demand for truth-to-experience expressed in natural, unaffected speech.'
Maitreyabandhu
This brilliant poet's crab-apple tree imparts the same kind of gorgeous and devastating self-knowledge granted Eve by the biblical Tree of Life.
Rafel Campo, Boston Review

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The Meanest Flower Mimi Khalvati 10% off eBook (EPUB) 10% off Paperback Categories: 21st Century, Women Imprint: Carcanet Poetry Publisher: Carcanet Press Available as: eBook (EPUB) Needs ADE! (Pub. May 2012) 9781847777959 £9.95 £8.96 Paperback (96 pages) (Pub. Jul 2007) 9781857548686 £9.95 £8.96 To use the EPUB version, you will need to have Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) installed on your device. You can find out more at https://www.adobe.com/uk/solutions/ebook/digital-editions.html. Please do not purchase this version if you do not have and are not prepared to install, Adobe Digital Editions. Description Excerpt Author Awards Reviews As if they were family, flowers surround you. As if they were a story-book, they speak. They speak through eyes and strange configurations on their faces, markings on petals, whiskers... from 'The Meanest Flower' Wordsworth's 'meanest flower that blows' suggested to him 'thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears'. The lyrics, elegies, songs and ghazals in Mimi Khalvati's new book pay attention to things the imagination generally disregards, an attention that is concentrated, intense and unapologetically Romantic. Hers is the true voice of feeling, undeflected by irony or self-deprecation. There is rapture in these poems as well as a tragic sense: nature, childhood, motherhood and family relationships all have a double valency, a give and take, to which Khalvati witnesses with a feeling sharpened by love and grief. Mimi Khalvati was born in Tehran, Iran, and grew up on the Isle of Wight. She has lived most of her life in London. After training at Drama Centre London, she worked as an actor in the UK and as a director at the Theatre Workshop Tehran and on the fringe ... read more Awards won by Mimi Khalvati Winner, 2023 The King's Gold Medal for Poetry Winner, 2019 Poetry Book Society Winter Wild Card (Afterwardness) Winner, 2014 Poetry Book Society Recommendation (The Weather Wheel) Winner, 2011 Poetry Book Society Special Commendation (Child) Short-listed, 2007 The T.S. Eliot Prize (The Meanest Flower) This open and generous readiness to engage with all realities and see their worth gives Khalvati her power... graceful accomplishment is always in the service of a fundamental seriousness. Bernard O'Donoghue, Poetry London A lovely book, so accomplished, various, comprehensive and abundant. The poems are quick and touching, joyfully and sorrowfully open to the phenomena of the real world, they say what it feels like being human, the good and the ill of it, with passion, tact and lightness. David Constantine Khalvati's writing draws on diverse worlds and poetic traditions, and enriches the dominant culture of British poetry...Intricate, sensuous and vulnerable...Mimi Khalvati's work will endure. Moniza Alvi, Poetry Wales Mimi Khalvati is one of the most poignant and graceful poets writing in England currently. The Meanest Flower speaks often of grief and loss but also of great pleasure in the world, in gardens, in loves, in other people. Under the lyricism there is an iron control that achieves its grace through subtlety. There reader is aware one is in the presence of a mind, a heart and an ear that has been schooled in depth, that finds it as naturally as do the flowers of the title. George Szirtes Khalvati writes exquisitely nuanced lyrics of love and loss, which draw on childhood, motherhood and the natural world. These [The Meanest Flower] are tender poems in the English Romantic tradition. *No. 3 in 'The Ten Best New poetry collections' - Independent, 2007* Praise for Mimi Khalvati 'This generous, expansive volume affirms Khalvati's place as one of the UK's most accomplished lyric poets.' Jennifer Lee Tsai, The Guardian 'The marvel of these poems is in their pure lyric flow â like shining a torch around a dark room. Each poem is wonderfully adroit, capturing, often with child-like relish, the touch of the world.' Maitreyabandhu, Poem 'She has the ability to find the sublime in art, the capacity to transform things into something that seems lasting... single moments of light in the face of encroaching darkness.' Kwame Dawes, Poetry Review '... [m]ystical and down-to-earth, innovative and approachable, precise in visual detail but roomy in vision...' Carol Rumens, The Guardian 'Khalvati's method is never formulaic and is always open to experience.' W S Milne, Agenda 'What I find remarkable is how little ego there is in this exploration, how sensitively and empathetically Khalvati looks out to the experience of other people, mixing hers with theirs so that the two often become indistinguishable' Edmund Prestwich, The North 'This collection has so many layers and cross-currents. There are rich memories hiding here' D A Powell, Under the Radar 'Poetry of the highest order' John Wheway, The High Window 'What is particularly striking throughout the collection is how the poems are able to move through time in relation to one's age, life or nationality.' Anthony Anaxagorou, PBS Winter Selection 2019 'In so many of these poems, the images frame and enunciate the character of an exiles life with tremendous resonance. The recurrent, deeply traditional formal design of the Petrarchan sonnet grounds the collection and provides a containing experience of consistency and reliability that contrasts with all the disorientation, the displacement, the endless efforts to make a new home that never quite yield a secure sense of belonging....This is a collection in which I have been grateful to immerse myself.' John Wheway, The High Window 'This book feels a little like an act of self-haunting ... like tender postcards from afar, addressed to the poet herself' Michael Glover, The Tablet 'Colour combines with contemplation [...] The symmetry is elegant, and the collection is a sophisticated, original exploration of a self made in and by the new language' Fiona Sampson, The Guardian 'I found these sonnets to be exquisite and remarkable, not only for Mimi Khalvati's formal virtuosity but also for her bold and brilliant charting of new ground, in exploring the energies of absence, silence and unknowing. The poet's ear in these poems is attuned not to obvious noise but to night sounds, faint traces, on those whose lives lack narrative or 'underscript'. These poems are playful, moving and brimming with a fierce intelligence., and in this collection, her ninth, Mimi Khalvati is writing at the very height of her lyric power.' Hannah Lowe 'Poems of extraordinary rigour and sensitivity. I know of no other contemporary poet who combines, so consistently and so deftly, the formal requirements of metre and rhyme, with the poets' demand for truth-to-experience expressed in natural, unaffected speech.' Maitreyabandhu This brilliant poet's crab-apple tree imparts the same kind of gorgeous and devastating self-knowledge granted Eve by the biblical Tree of Life. Rafel Campo, Boston Review	Share this... Quick Links Carcanet Poetry Carcanet Classics Carcanet Fiction Carcanet Film Lives and Letters PN Review Video Carcanet Celebrates 50 Years! 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