i am living too many
parallel lives
one for each loss
one with a disease
one as an immigrant
one as a wife
one as a mom
as a daughter
as a sister
a teacher
a student
a poet
a designer
a maker and a creator of
paintings and prints on fine
papers and cheap canvases
many clicks on a keyboard
together though
i am a lost bird
in a small wired gold cage
Pantea Amin Tofangchi is an Iranian American poet, writer, and graphic designer and art director. She was eight when the Iran‐Iraq War started and in senior high when it ended. She grew up in poetry, war, death, conflict, beauty, hatred, love and censorship all at the same time. Along with her husband she immigrated to the United States in 2000. She writes poems (in English), essays, stories and plays (mostly in Persian.)
Her work has been published in Ploughshares, Little Patuxent Review, Welter, Atlanta Review—in which she won the International Merit Award—and other journals. She was selected as a finalist for The National Poetry Series’ 2016 and Georgia Poetry Prize 2018.
Her poetry collection Glazed With War was published in 2023 by Mason Jar Press. Glazed With War is her story, her life, written from her childhood’s perspective.
To see her design portfolio click here
To know more about her poetry see the following link:
poetry reading