Poet Stephen Burt's 'Belmont' To Be Heard In The Town Where It Takes Place

It is a book of poems as bright as its cover; a photo of the primary-colored slats of a playground's bridge. 

Stephen Burt's "Belmont: Poems" is his third collection of poems that readers will immediately recognized who the writer is; a fellow resident of the everyday existence in a safe, sedate, suburban life. Taking the 74 bus to work, playing with his son, Nathan, observing that world around him.

See Burt read from his collection on a video from the Los Angeles Review of Books.

And unlike the aging creative hipster who rants and rails at the contemptibly dull and ordinary of the 'burbs, Burt's OK with his life in Belmont, and celebrates it. 

"Stephen Burt's Belmont is a celebration of the ordinary: walks in the park, breakfast cereal, the Subaru, the Swingline stapler. It's a book about being a father in the suburbs, and thus a book about growing up, written from the perspective of someone who has and who has discovered that there is life, and happiness, to be had on the other side. [A] sobering and mature collection," observed the San Francisco Chronicle in its review. 
The collection sold out when it was initially displayed this past spring at the Harvard Book Store across from Harvard College where Burt is a professor of English. "Belmont  was later named a Publishers Weekly Top 10 Poetry Book of Spring 2013 and a collection "to watch for" on the New Yorker's book blog. 

"Mostly Belmont is a book about domestic life: fatherhood, marriage in a Boston suburb, days spent in the city—and these are some of the tenderest, most beautiful, most sympathetic poems to have been written about life with children," said NPR.org's Craig Morgan Teicher in his "2013 Poetry Preview."

Burt will discuss that daily life in the suburbs when he reads from and discusses "Belmont: Poems" at Belmont Public Library's "Author Talk" tonight, Tuesday, Oct. 29 from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the Library's Assembly Room. 

All are welcome to attend this free program. Books will be available for sale and signing.