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March 17, 2021 – With the pandemic lockdown still upon us, we are deprived of our “traditional” celebration of St. Patrick’s Day. This Paul Marion post from March 17, 2011, captures what Lowell is usually like today. For me, it evokes some nostalgia and brings some hopefulness for the not-too-distant…
Read More »From time to time through the pandemic, I have posted updates to capture the events and the look and feel of that moment in time. Almost exactly a year ago today I did my first. I called it “Covid-19: March 12 edition” never imagining that I should have included “2020”…
Read More »STUFF YOU KNOW BUT CAN’T NAME The following is a cross-post from my own blog (PaulMarion.com) on January 4, 2021. It took more than a year, but I compiled the best comments from a discussion thread on social media provoked by a question I threw out to the crowd. With…
Read More »Poet, publisher, and bookstore owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti passed away this week at the age of 101. A friend and publisher of Jack Kerouac’s, Ferlinghetti in the late 1980s visited Lowell at least twice as a guest of the Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! group. He began writing the poem below on a…
Read More »I wrote this appreciation of Roger Brunelle at the request of Dave Moore in England, all-around Kerouac wiseman and founder of a Kerouac Group on Facebook with thousands of members worldwide.–PM Au Revoir, Roger Brunelle (1934-2021) By Paul Marion Au revoir, Roger. Let’s hope we do see you again in…
Read More »Recycling this bulletin from 2010 when I regularly walked around Lowell. My habit was to walk and then write about what I’d seen for the Howe blog. This area is close to where I lived for 24 years, Highland St near the Rogers School. I was acquainted with Peter Danas…
Read More »In recognition of Black History Month, this week Trasna features an excerpt from a new publication by Joann Malone, Awake to Racism. Malone, an Irish-American, shares her experiences as a Catholic nun in Alabama in the 1960s. There, while teaching, she begins a lifelong involvement in the Civil Rights movement.…
Read More »George Washington was born on February 22, 1732, at his parents’ estate on the south bank of the Potomac River in northeast Virginia. Congress made the day a Federal holiday in 1879 and nearly one hundred years later in the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1971, Congress changed the name…
Read More »This week Trasna is pleased to feature the work of K.T. Slattery. A native of Tennessee, who now lives in the West of Ireland, Slattery is a familiar with Transatlantic crossings. “My biggest regret / Moving across the wide ocean- / I missed that glorious day / Red Sox World Champions!!!!” We commend Slattery not…
Read More »George Chigas’ Review of On Earth Beneath Sky by Chath pierSath In the aftermath of genocide, survivors undergo a lifelong process of healing in an attempt to make sense of the traumatic events that ruptured their lives. They strive to come to a new understanding of themselves and the…
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