Poetry Recital | In the Rose Garden: Poetic Responses to Sa‘di
Date & Time
Thu. Mar. 26, 2026
6 PM-7 PM
This event has passed
Location Main Campus | Law Building
Parking at Beck Garage
Drop off at Beck Building
Email Your Questions [email protected]
Poetry Recital | In the Rose Garden: Poetic Responses to Sa‘di
Date & Time
Thu. Mar. 26, 2026
6 PM-7 PM
This event has passed
Location Main Campus | Law Building
Parking at Beck Garage
Drop off at Beck Building
In response to Art of the Islamic Worlds’ Open Call, three contemporary American writers bring classical Persian poet Saʿdi into the present day with original works recited in the museum galleries.
Inspired by the poet’s seminal piece, the Gulistan (or Rose Garden), Raneem Bakir Alia, Emily Bludworth de Barrios, and Theresa Camacho present poetry and prose in dialogue with the 13th-century Saʿdi.
The writers will read their works alongside a 19th-century illustrated copy of the Gulistan from the Indian kingdom of Alwar on view in the Hossein Afshar Galleries for Art of the Islamic Worlds. Replete with lively paintings, this manuscript speaks to the enduring legacy of the Gulistan over the centuries across the Persianate and Islamic worlds, and to Houston today.
Plan Your Visit
- This program is included with Museum admission.
- The event takes place in the Hossein Afshar Galleries for Art of the Islamic Worlds on Level 1 of the Law Building.
- Parking Information | Museum Hours | MFAH Campus Map
About the Writers
Raneem Bakir Alia is a Moroccan-Palestinian American poet and writer. She is an alumnus of the 2024 Tin House Summer Workshop and the 2025 Kenyon Review Summer Workshop. She is the recipient of a Mellon Research Fellowship, awarded by the University of Houston and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Her poetry is forthcoming in the SWANA issue of The Manoa Review.
Emily Bludworth de Barrios is the author of the poetry books Rich Wife (University of Wisconsin Press 2025) and Shopping or The End of Time (University of Wisconsin Press 2022). Her work combines lyrical and associative forms to consider class, material culture, and the conditions under which women make art. A recipient of the Four Lakes Prize and the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry, she divides her time between Houston, Texas and Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia.
Theresa Camacho is a bilingual writer, editor, and scholar whose work moves across Persianate, Arabic, and Hispanic literary traditions. She studied Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley, and pursued graduate work in Islamic Studies and Spanish and Hispanic American Literature. Her writing engages issues of ethics, power, memory, and poetics across languages and regions, with particular interest in medieval and early modern literary cultures. She is also an experienced medical and legal editor.
Email Your Questions [email protected]
Learning and Interpretation programs at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, receive generous support from H-E-B; Sempra Foundation; the Brown Foundation, Inc.; the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo; the Joe Barnhart Foundation; the Cockrell Family Fund; the CFP Foundation; the Claire & Theodore Morse Foundation; the Junior League of Houston, Inc.; and additional generous donors.
Endowment funds are provided by the Louise Jarrett Moran Bequest; Caroline Wiess Law; Windgate Foundation; the William Randolph Hearst Foundation; Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff; the Fondren Foundation; BMC Software, Inc.; the Wallace Foundation; the Neal Myers and Ken Black Children’s Art Fund; the Eleanor and Frank Freed Foundation; Medha and Shashank Karve; Virginia and Ira Jackson; Jesse H. Jones II; the CFP Foundation; the Favrot Fund; gifts in memory of John Wynne; Neiman Marcus Youth Arts Education; gifts in memory of Peter Lotz; and gifts in honor of Beth Schneider.
On Thursdays, admission to the MFAH Permanent Collections is free, courtesy of Shell USA, Inc.