Stephen Burt and John Colburn read from their new poetry

Two poets show us new worlds, real and imagined

In Belmont, poet Stephen Burt maps out the joys and the limits of the life he has chosen, the life that chose him, examining and reimagining parenthood, marriage, adulthood, and suburbia .

"Stephen Burt has long been regarded among the most important critics now writing, but this year marks his emergence as one of his generation's most interesting poets. . . . 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."--Craig Morgan Teicher, NPR.org, "2013 Poetry Preview"

Stephen Burt is the author of three poetry collections and several critical books, including Close Calls with Nonsense, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He teaches at Harvard University and lives in Belmont, Massachusetts.

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SPECIAL SNEAK PREVIEW: John Colburn reads from his new book Psychedelic Norway

“John Colburn does here for poetry what George Saunders has done for the short story: liberate it to pursue darkly funny social commentary through wildly inventive combinations of form and tone.”--Dobby Gibson

The rest of the world has to wait until October to get their hands on Psychedelic Norway, but you, my very good friend, you can have one in August. You’re welcome. Psychedelic Norway takes form as site of play and a place for the rupture of expectations. Sentence, folktale, confession, pop quiz--all allow for the chaotic impulse behind the imagination, defying the tyranny of orthodoxies with a visionary midwestern populism that argues for enchantment as the moral imperative of our time.