fahima ife (b. California, April 1983) is an American lyrical poet, essayist, and editor. She writes about intimacy, sensuality, and beauty as it relates to nature and metaphysics. She is author of the poetry book, Septet for the Luminous Ones (Wesleyan University Press, 2024), the chapbook, abalone (Albion Books, 2023), and the hybrid poetry book, Maroon Choreography (Duke University Press, 2021). Poems appear in the Kenyon Review, Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, Poetry Daily, American Academy of Poets Poem-A-Day, The Brooklyn Rail, and more. She has performed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of the African Diaspora, the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics, and the Library of Congress. With poet Ian U Lockaby she co-facilitates the indie poetry micropress, LUCIUS (coming December 2024).

She is associate professor of Black Aesthetics & Poetics in the department of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of California Santa Cruz. She teaches classes on Global African music and performance, creative research methods, poetry, poetics, Black Feminisms, and love.

fahima makes her home on the central California coast where she practices a yoga lifestyle grounded in daily rituals of love, joy, and peace. She is at work on a third poetry book, a novel, and an essay collection.