Beginning with a thin volume of poetry purchased from a San Francisco bookstore, Golburt's library has since grown to include more than 150 titles of poetry, supplemented with prose, art and biographies.

Books were "pretty much the only thing we had," the May graduate says of her childhood in the former Soviet Union. Her parents had to sell their treasured collection of books and manuscripts, for just $25, when they emigrated to the United States.

"It was really painful to leave our books," Golburt recalls.