Style speaks

to poet and former theatre director Mimi Khalvati

This issue, we sit down with poet, lecturer, and co-founder of London’s Poetry School, Mimi Khalvati, to talk writing, inspirational teachers, and growing up in an all-girls school in Shanklin.

You were born in the Iranian capital city of Tehran and spent the first six years of your life there. What do you remember about those early years in 1940s Iran?

Well, strangely, I don’t have any memories of that time at all. Coming to Britain only speaking Farsi I had to learn English pretty quickly. As I lost my mother tongue, I think I lost the memories that were embedded with it too. My father was a civil engineer who’d studied in Germany after a scholarship from the shah. My mother started out as a P.A. to a manager at one of the big Iranian banks. She later did a fine art degree at Central Saint Martins in London before going into interior design and starting a flower arranging business.

Aged six you began your ten-year stint at Upper Chine boarding school in Shanklin. How did you end up studying over 3,000 miles from home, on the tranquil Isle of Wight?

I think Upper Chine school was quite popular amongst Iranians at the time. When I arrived in 1950, there were already a few older Iranian pupils and a girl around the same age as me too. Like a lot of boarding schools back then, Upper Chine had a strong contingent of international pupils. My best friend was from Thailand and I found out years later that she became one of the country’s first female barristers and later headed up a big corporation in Bangkok.

We’ve heard that your English teacher at Upper Chine was the renowned writer and classical scholar Aubrey de Sélincourt, who took classes on the downs, reading poetry aloud. Is this where your love for the written word first began?

It was wonderful. We called him ‘strawberry’, and of course, we all had a crush on him. When we were studying the Romantic poets, he’d take us up to the downs and read reams of their poetry in his wonderful murmuring voice while we daydreamed around him. It was a great introduction to the subject.

You started your career as an actor and theatre director, before becoming a poet and later a poetry lecturer and tutor too. Which role have you enjoyed the most?

When I, by mistake, started writing poetry in my 40s, it felt the right fit. Poetry allows you to live in the present moment, without much sense of your history or past. I liked drama but not the public side of it — I never wanted to be an actor; I wanted to be a theatre director. When I played one of the nuns in Ken Russell’s film ‘The Devils’ I remember spending most of it trying to hide behind a pillar!

You were 47 when your first poetry book ‘In White Ink’ was published. What prompted that change in direction?

At the time I was a single parent. A friend suggested I do a writing course to earn some money, so I signed up to an Arvon course in script writing and poetry… but the teachers were much more keen on the poetry than the script writing. My first poetry pamphlet ‘Persian Miniatures’ won an award, and one of the judges, Michael Schmidt from Carcanet Press, wanted to publish a full collection of my work. So it all happened rather quickly.

Do you find any particular places or moments help to get those words flowing?

What I like best is writing first thing in the morning, sometimes before I’ve even got dressed properly. I also like to write outdoors, especially in bright sunlight and warmth. I find the Mediterranean quite conducive for that.

You’ve written poems about Shanklin Chine and the landscape of the Isle of Wight. What particularly inspires you about the place?

For me, the Isle of Wight certainly has a magical, fairytale-like quality, especially Shanklin and the Chine. I named one of my poetry collections ‘The Chine’ and, being a local term, I enjoyed the fact that even many native speakers of English didn’t know what the word meant.

Your home is now the London Borough of Hackney. Do you ever revisit the Island or have you ever been tempted to move back here?

Being in a boarding school, I only ever really saw a small part of the Island and revisiting in later years I realised I didn’t really know it. I’ve been to Cowes, held a workshop at the hospital, and have fond memories of Ryde too. The last time I visited must have been about ten years ago now, I’m always planning to come down with my friends but we haven’t quite got round to it yet!

A selection of Mimi’s books is available to buy from Medina Books in Cowes and Babushka Books in Shanklin