aiman tahir khan
ایمن طاہر خان
is a writer from Lahore, Pakistan, who has identified ninety-two [92] bird calls on the Merlin ornithology app, served on the editorial teams of three [3] literary magazines, including The Adroit Journal, crossed two [2] oceans to read poetry as the inaugural Pakistan National Youth Poet Laureate, led one [1] modest workshop on forms of longing, and had her work featured in many [∞] places, including Nimrod International Journal, the minnesota review, Shō Poetry Journal, and her mother’s WhatsApp. She is a Fall 2025 Brooklyn Poets Fellow.
PoetryLetter and Steps forthcoming in Shō Poetry Journal, Issue 8 [print]Three Poems forthcoming in the minnesota review, Issue 106 [print]Fruit Salad and Litany [As I Reach For You] forthcoming in The Aleph Review, Issue 9 [print]Three Poems forthcoming in Diode, Issue 18.3Prayer Is Like A Panic Attack In That I Don't Know Where To Place My Hands in Porter House Review, Summer 2025Remembrance in Nimrod International Journal, Summer 2025 [print]Low Heat in Harpur Palate, Issue 24.1Postcard from La Mer Beach, DXB in Nashville Review, Issue 44Love, Do Not Ask in Muzzle Magazine, Issue 36In My Dreams It Snows In Lahore in MudRoom, Issue 17Kintsugi in The Shore, Issue 24Rivers of Milk in The Penn Review, Issue 74Keepsakes in Wildness, Issue 34Only in a Dream in Rust + Moth, Spring 2024-AnthologiesLate Spring Sonnet and Four Poems forthcoming in the Second Edition of Poetry in English from Pakistan: A 21st Century Anthology, Fall 2025 [print]Someday I’ll Love Aiman Tahir Khan & Only in a Dream in Jashn: Pakistan Youth Poet Laureate Anthology [print]-Other PublicationsThree Poems by Sara Shagufta, translations, forthcoming in Lakeer Magazine, Spring 2026A Place to Return: Reflections on Yi Yi in Michigan Quarterly Review Mixtape, Issue 17-Honors & AffiliationsFellow, Brooklyn Poets, Fall 2025Workshop Facilitator, Forms of Longing at Kitab Ghar KarachiFinalist, Hayden’s Ferry Review Poetry Contest 2025Associate Poetry Editor, Sontag MagPoetry Mentor, Lakeer Magazine, Summer 2025Translations Reader, The Adroit JournalInaugural Pakistan National Youth Poet Laureate 2024–25
Forms of LongingA 4-week generative poetry & hybrid workshop from July 26, 2025 to August 16, 2025
Praise"Stunned by the very gentle see-saw-ey cadence [of the sessions] which made the sessions so buttery and almost dough-like...""I'm so thankful I was a part of this workshop [...] the experience was something that I don't believe I could have replicated by working alone.""You have introduced me to so many new forms and writers that I am hungry to learn more about and from—just today I was telling a bookseller about Sei Shōnagon as a recommendation to stock The Pillow Book!""I can feel the way the class and the journal exercises have changed the way I think about how I think. Now, when I make observations, I’m always thinking about how I could write them down."
StructureWeekly sessions included close reading, discussion, and generative exercises. Drawing inspiration from contemporary hybrid texts, participants were asked to keep a personal journal to explore their own fixations and generate work across genres. In the final week, each writer contributed a single page—a poem, list, collage, or letter—to a collaborative digital chapbook.ReadingsWe read a range of texts that explored obsession in both content and form. Core readings included Maggie Nelson’s Bluets, Han Kang’s The White Book, Victoria Chang’s Obit, Anne Carson’s Nox, Sheila Heti’s Alphabetical Diaries, Sei Shōnagon’s The Pillow Book, Mary Ruefle’s erasure poems, and Bhanu Kapil’s ‘Twelve Questions’ from The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers.