Birth—1972
Where—Peshawar
Education—Reed College
Currently—San Diego

Bibliography 

• Kohl and Chalk – (2013)

• Baker of Tarifa (2010)

Shadab Zeest Hashmi is a Pakistani-American poet. She graduated from Reed College in 1995 and received her MFA from Warren Wilson College. Her poetry has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Poetry International, Vallum, Atlanta Review, Nimrod, The Bitter Oleander, Journal of Postcolonial Writings, The Cortland Review, The Adirondack Review, New Millennium Writings, Universe: A United Nations of Poets, Drunken Boat, Split this Rock, Hubbub and many other places. Shadab Zeest Hashmi’s essays on eastern poetic forms such as the Ghazal and Qasida have been published in the Journal of Contemporary World Literature, and her essays have appeared in the Washington Post, Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies and Knot magazine. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize multiple times, and has taught in the MFA program at San Diego State University as a writer-in-residence. Hashmi served as the editor of Magee Park Poets Anthology from 2000 to 2013. She is a columnist for 3 Quarks Daily.

In 2010, Poetic Matrix Press published Hashmi’s book Baker of Tarifa, which won the 2011 San Diego Book Award for poetry. Baker of Tarifa is based on the history of Al Andalus (Muslim Spain) or Spain of the Middle ages, legendary for tolerance between Muslims, Jews and Christians. Baker of Tarifa was praised for both subject and style by the noted poet Sam Hamill in his review. Eleanor Wilner called Hashmi’s poems “luminous.” Shadab Zeest Hashmi’s latest book Kohl & Chalk, which has been called “a prayer for peace” by Sandra Alcosser, received the San Diego Book Award 2014 .

Many of Shadab Zeest Hashmi’s poems explore feminism, history and perspectives on Islam. She has been translated into Urdu and has been well reviewed by Pakistani critics as well. Muneeza Shamsie has called Shadab Zeest Hashmi “a powerful new voice.” One reviewer writes: “Ms Hashmi has made herself a part of an essentially feminist tradition of Pakistani writing in English while striking a wonderfully fresh note.”

Her poems have been translated into Spanish and Urdu, and published (or are forthcoming in) Prairie Schooner, Poetry International, Wasafiri, The Cortland Review, Vallum, Atlanta Review, Journal of Postcolonial Writings, The Adirondack Review, RHINO, Nimrod, Drunken Boat, The Bitter Oleander,Spillway,South Asian Review, Hubbub, New Millennium Writings,One, The Citron Review, Sugar Mule, Serving House Journal and other places. Her essays on eastern poetic forms such as the Ghazal and Qasida have been published in the Journal of Contemporary World Literature and 3 Quarks Daily, and her essays have appeared in the Washington Post, Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies, and Knot magazine.

Kohl & Chalk
Shadab Zeest Hashmi
Shadab Zeest Hashmi grew up in Peshawar, Pakistan, in the shadow of the snowcapped Safed Koh mountains marking the border with Afghanistan. In the streets near her home, vendors sold plums and corn with salt and lime.

Q & A with Shadab Zeest Hashmi
Can you tell us a little about your writing/revision process?
I write on an empty stomach. The first draft is hand-written in a slim notebook that I keep with me. I like to take a break before revising, so I have some distance from the work and I can be super-critical. I revise on the computer and I revise multiple times, typically with tea and almonds.

Poems by Shadab Zeest Hashmi
Guantanamo
A guard forces you to urinate on yourself
Another barks out louder than his dog
the names of your sisters
who live in the delicate nest
of a ruby-throated hummingbird
Each will be a skeleton he says

“Saying” The Ghazal: Duende And Performing The Courtly Art Of The Ghazal
Shadab Zeest Hashmi
The ghazal entered my consciousness first as music (on Radio Pakistan or my parents’ LPs), accessible only through melody, beat, rhyme, refrain; the poem’s literary heft, of course, utterly lost on me. 

Kohl & Chalk Reading for Huffington