1. Before the launch of “Desert Candles” at River Oaks bookstore on June 1, 2019.
2. University of St. Thomas. Among happy contributors to Mutabilis Press’s “Untameable City” anthology chosen by the Houston Chronicle as one of the 12 books for Houstonians to read in 2017.
3. 2019 Austin Poetry Fest Featured Poets’ Panel, hosted by Roger West (Glasgow). Christopher Merrill (Iowa City), Elina Petrova (Houston/ Ukraine), Nicole Peyrafitte (NYC/ French Pyrenees), and Samantha Barendson (Lyon, France) discuss the role of international poets in times of isolationism and nationalism.
4. AvantGarden, where a young poet in the audience texted my lines to friends. :)
5. 2018 Houston Poetry Fest Juried Poet.
6. 2017 Public Poetry reading at UHD-Downtown.
7. 2016 “100 Thousand Poets for Change” to tunes by Tex Allen.
8. Rice University “Words & Art” – ekphrastic poetry inspired by Gunilla Klingberg’s “Wheel of Everyday Life.”
9. 2015 Rice Gallery “Words & Art” – ekphrastic poetry inspired by Anila Quayyum Agha’s “Intersections.”
10. Museum of the Big Bend, January 2018. Thirty-nine poets from Texas and New Mexico whose poems were selected for the anthology “Echoes of the Cordillera: Attitudes and Latitudes Along the Great Divide” (contains 52 photographs by Jim Bones). Alpine, Texas.
11. Exposed in Museum of the Big Bend, my poem, “Cordillera Runner,” from Jim Bones’s anthology, “Echoes of the Cordillera.”
12. 2016 Austin International Poetry Fest anthology poets at Blanton Museum of Art.
13. AIPF poets at Austin’s Malvern Books.
14. CAMH, November 2018: Walls Turned Sideways: Artists Confront the Justice System.
15. October 2016: Bearing the Mask: Southwestern Persona Poems (Poetry of the American Southwest) at Brazos Bookstore, Houston.
16. Contributors of “Untameable City” by Mutabilis Press in the Carl Gustav Jung Center.
17. Jung Center. My poetic contribution to Mutabilis Press.
18. Poets published in Dos Gatos Press’s 2017 “Texas Calendar” celebrate in Houston’s Blue Willow bookstore.
19. Austin reading at BookWoman.
20. At the launch of “Aching Miracle” at River Oaks bookstore on September 19, 2015.
21. An Inprint featured reading in 2016.
22. The 2018 Ekphrastic Contest at Friendswood Public Library, where my poems won top honors.
23. The prize I was so touched to receive (You don’t know how any sign of recognition feels when you write in a new language, like a deaf composer who relies on “inner music”).
24. The indispensable writing group, “Poets-in-the-Loop,” that for seven years has been patiently helping me to shape my poetry in a foreign language: John, Mary, Dom, Chuck, Varsha, Winston, Carrie, Kelly, and Vanessa – good souls, unique voices.
25. 2018 Words & Art: reading my poem inspired by Mona Hatoum’s Terra Infirma at Menill Collection.
26. June 21, 2019: my poetic response to James Turrell Skyspace at Rice University.
27. I still can’t believe I accepted a nomination from my Russian community and became a finalist of Houston Poetry Laureate in April 2015. I was so happy to meet these brilliant women: our former mayor and two Poet Laureates of Houston!
28. April 2019 AIPF. A group snapshot for the road: Pierre Joris, Nicole Peyrafitte, Samantha Barendson, Roger West, Chris Juravich (my husband), Kate Rex, and Christopher Merrill.
29. June 1, 2019. Dom Zuccone, to whom I’m immensely grateful for hosting my “Desert Candles” launch. When someone cares for your poetry, it’s like finding true family who hear your soul. Such people are to be treasured.
30. Once at Amir Safi’s event in AvantGarden, where I was lucky to read my poems among talented youth who are not “page poets” like me – they perform their poems by heart.
