May Sarton, a distinguished American novelist and poets, is coming to the Harvard Summer School this week.

Miss Sarton will appear at the last session of the Wednesday afternoon Poetry Reading Series and will read selected pieces from her own poetry. The reading will take place on Wednesday, at 4 p.m. in Allston, Burr B.

Last year, Miss Sarton published "The Small Room," her seventh novel. She did much of the work on her book at Wellesley College, while teaching a course in creative writing there.

On Wednesday, Miss Sarton will read primarily from "Cloud, Stone, Sun, Vine," a book of selected poems published last fall by Morton and Company publishers of New York City. She will be introduced by Harold C. Martin, director of General Education A at Harvard.

In the past few years, Miss Sarton has been a Guggenheim Fellow and has also served a term as a Lucy Marton Donnelly Fellow at Bryn Mawr College. She lectured recently at the Johns Hopkins Poetry Festival, and her readings there have just been published in a book called "The Moment of Poetry."