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Poetry Reading: Nina Murray - Minimize Considered

These poems by Nina Murray draw on her experience as an officer of the U.S. Department of State and to a large degree are set in cities where she has worked or studied. Whether it be Toronto, Washington, D.C., or Lincoln, Nebraska, the poems are acutely aware of place; some portray the impersonality of the modern urban landscape. But the poet's eye often picks out, primarily from nature, sharply observed exceptions to the rule. For example, in "August," the collection's opening poem, she considers the spiders which have adapted to life on the façade of a high-rise building: "anchored in the joint of brushed steel/the height doesn't bother them/the wind/seventeen floors above the street/fawns over them/feeds small flies into their web/an occasional disoriented wasp/it is a life...' Similarly, the poem goes on to say, "we inhabit/this city's crevices..." Nina Murray is a native of the Western Ukrainian city of Lviv. She is a poet and literary translator from the Ukrainian and Russian languages. As a U.S. diplomat, she has served in Lithuania, Canada, and Russia.

Date: 12/22/2018
Time: 11:00am - 1:00pm
Place:

7 North Loudoun Street
Winchester, VA 22601
United States