Watch for details on ordering a new book of Lowell poems (and a few poems set on the Maine coast) from Tom Sexton, known to these blog readers for his literary exploits. Tom leaped from Lowell High School to being Poet Laureate of Alaska in not quite a single bound, but he got there. He has written and published more than a dozen books. His latest, “Bridge Street at Dusk,” will be available for purchase on July 1 from www.loompress.com. The price is $15.

The poems evoke a Lowell of the recent past as well as Lowell today through the eyes, ears, mind, and emotions of one who has been away but never really left. About his previous book, “I Think Again of Those Ancient Chinese Poets,” the New York Times Book Review wrote: “He’s an atavistic avatar of how to look hard yet write simply.” Poet Mike Casey, another Lowell writing hero, says about Tom: “He is a terrific poet, perceptive and insightful, and his poetry is coruscatingly brilliant.” Coruscatingly. You don’t hear that word every day.

The cover image is a painting by Richard Marion, inspired by the Bridge Street or Cox Bridge over the Merrimack River. Some people call this “the Central Bridge,” maybe because it connected downtown to Centralville?