Emerging BIWOC Poet Spotlight: Leila Farjami
This monthly series features poems by women of color in the early stages of their publishing careers. It is our intention to create more space at Perugia for the work of poets who are Black, Indigenous, and women of color (BIWOC). We hope using our platform to highlight this work will expand the readership of the poets we spotlight. This series aligns with Perugia’s mission to celebrate and support emerging women poets, inclusive of gender-expansive identities; featured poems will be from poets with no more than one published full-length collection. We’d love to hear from readers with suggestions for poems & poets to feature.
April 2026 Poet: Leila Farjami
Daughter of Salt: Half-Parted
I'm the girl who won't go past wet ankles for something glistening in the sea. Call me a queen, but royals perished for less— mud silting their eyes. A girl learns her name is penciled by gods—effaced in stone. When I fasten my brass hoops, they shimmer like beggar's gold. Then dust. I don't flinch at ruin. My afterlife heels lift me five inches closer to the moon. Who refuses a wonder so rare? I never ask for abundance— Khidr rising lush from the dead. When I look back, my mother's mouth is a longing, half-parted for honey. No daughter can give sugar in salt.
Source
Daughter of Salt, Trio House Press, 2026
Poet Bio
Leila Farjami is an Iranian-American poet and psychotherapist and the author of the debut poetry collection Daughter of Salt (Trio House Press, 2026), an Editor’s Selection. She is the recipient of The Iowa Review Award in Poetry and The Cincinnati Review’s Robert and Adele Schiff Award and a PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Ploughshares, AGNI, The Iowa Review, Copper Nickel, The Missouri Review, Pleiades, and elsewhere. She lives in Los Angeles.