The Belmont Public Library will celebrate the 30th anniversary of National Poetry Month—the largest literary celebration in the world—with its annual poetry reading on April 13, featuring eight local poets.
According to organizer and poet Wendy Drexler, the readings began around 2018 and were suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the construction of the new library. With a fresh space, Drexler and other Belmont-based poets have eagerly worked to bring the reading back.
In addition to the featured poets, the event will have an open mic segment, where members of the community are invited to share their own writing.
“Part of the idea is to give people an opportunity who might not necessarily go to a poetry reading, to take a chance on a new kind of experience,” said Ruth Smullin, a co-organizer of the event.
Smullin will be participating in the reading.
For many, Smullin said, poetry can be daunting. It’s seen as complex and hard to understand, causing many to shy away from reading or writing it.
“There is poetry that’s very difficult to understand, there’s poetry that I find almost impossible to understand, but there’s also a tremendous amount of accessible, easy to understand poetry,” Smullin said. “Poetry has something for everyone.”
Drexler will be reading poems from her new collection “Harvest of What Remains,” which chronicles her journey as a caregiver for her husband, who has Alzheimer’s disease.
“Poetry is really another resource in helping people access and feel that their feelings are legitimate around the challenges of caring for someone,” she said.
Michael Astrue, who writes under the pen name A.M. Juster, will be reading from his latest book: a translation of Petrarch’s “Canzoniere.” Originally written in Italian, Petrarch’s poems often examine “the connection between love and chastity in the foreground of a political landscape,” according to the Poetry Foundation.
In the modern age, his poems stand the test of time, Astrue said. Readings like the one in Belmont encourages people to engage with poetry, whether it’s from the 14th century or written by local residents.
“We’ve let academic institutions and modernism kind of take over poetry, and it’s stripped it of a lot of its pleasures, and average people tend not to engage with the poetry of our time,” Astrue said. “I like the idea that the reading focuses a little bit harder on getting poetry out to people that are not academic types, and it’s a great thing.”
This year, several Belmont High School students will be participating in the open mic, Smullin said. At its core, the reading is meant to be both a celebration of the art of poetry and an invitation to tap into the emotions it can bring up.
“When people do listen to good poetry, they realize that it isn’t something that’s obscure or off putting that, it can really touch some places in the heart as well as in the mind,” Drexler said. “I think people come to poetry for love, grief, outrage, frustration, celebration, beauty. These are all human feelings, and poetry taps into those.”
The reading will take place April 13 at 7 p.m. in the library’s Morrissey Hall.
