Poetry Readings

Poetry readings over the past two decades include Poetry International and The Voice Box at the South Bank Centre, The Poetry Society, Barbican Centre, Museum of London, Pegasus Theatre Oxford, Swansea Year of Literature, The Arts Council Contemporary Poetry Promotion and Writers’ Tour, and numerous readings at universities, arts/literature organisations and poetry venues.  Festival readings include Aldeburgh, Bath, Birmingham, Bournemouth, Cheltenham, City of London, Charleston, Cambridge, Edinburgh Book Festival, Garden Festival Wales, Ledbury, Lewes, Lincoln, Kilkenny, Manchester, Norwich, and StAnza Festival in Scotland. Mimi has read at European poetry festivals in Florence, Palermo, Naples and Stockholm and her  international readings include Powells Books (Portland, Oregon), City College of New York, British Council tours of the Czech Republic and Spain, as well as readings at Ege University, Izmir, and in Istanbul.

‘She seems, like a bottle of champagne, to fizz in all directions at once.  She raises her voice to speak, finishes a sentence by snorting a throwaway joke half-heard toward her shoes, her luxuriant mane of hair, now gray, bursting like a wave about her head.  She ran through an adventurous set of poetry and anecdote, finishing by leading the audience through call-and-response style renditions of ghazals, a treatment that native Persian form seldom receives as an American poety workshop warhorse.  The audience adored her, and I can see why – her exuberant personality fairly dances through the air.’ – Douglas Spangle, reviewing a poetry reading at Powell’s Bookstore, Portland, Oregon (The Asian Reporter, August 2000).