Solmaz Sharif is an Iranian American poet. Born in Istanbul to Iranian parents, she studied at the University of California, Berkeley, and New York University and is currently Associate Professor of English at UC Berkeley. Her poetry explores war, exile, migration, borders, and the relationship between state power and language. Her debut collection, "Look," was a finalist for the 2016 National Book Award for Poetry. Drawing on terminology from the U.S. Department of Defense's "Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms," Sharif juxtaposes the bureaucratic language of warfare with her family's experiences of the Iran-Iraq War and the human consequences of U.S. military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, exposing how official language can abstract individual lives, deaths, and losses.
