Sīmīn Khalīlī was born in the Himatabad neighbourhood of Tehran in 1927. Her father, Abbās  Khalīlī, was a famous writer, translator, and journalist during the period of Reza Shah and the early period of Muhammad Reza Shah. She married Mr. Hasan Bihbihānī at the age of seventeen and had three children: ʿAlī, Husayn, and Omīd. Her first book of poems, along with a selection of her fictional prose, Sih tār-i shikastah, was published in March 1950. She became a prominent poet after the publication of her two other poetry books, Jā-yi pā (1956) and Chilchirāgh (1957). In the late 1950s, she taught in high schools in Tehran leading up to her graduation from the Faculty of Law in 1962. During these years she published her fourth book of poetry, Marmar, followed by Rastākhīz (1973), Khatti zi sūʻrat va az ātash (1981) and Yak darīchah-yi āzādī (1995). Sīmīn’s work in the ghazal is on par with Nīmā’s contribution to modern Persian poetry. Her addition of more than forty-one new verses to the ghazal has given this old form a new identity and has made it more receptive to modern messages.