I’ve been posting a haiku daily on Facebook as a poetry experiment. It’s always good to go where the readers are. The feedback has been good. This series of haiku is loosely arranged around my observations and experiences at the South Common, across the street from my home. Following are…
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At nytimes.com, economist Robert Reich looks to 2012 and beyond in a longer than usual essay.
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The Daily Mail in the UK and many other media outlets worldwide are reporting on the publication of what is considered Jack Kerouac’s first novel, “The Sea Is My Brother,” written when he was about 20 years old. The book is being published first in the UK by Penguin, and Harper reportedly…
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It was quiet on the Common at 7 a.m. when I made the circuit with our Boston Terrier, Ringo. How cold was it? Not very. Enough for a seasonal edge. The leaf-trees are empty. On the ground all the color has drained from the leaves, which from a distance resemble light…
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Today’s Sun features a front page, above the fold, article by Jennifer Myers about the COOL-est creative anthology in the city, “Young Angel Midnight,” edited by Ryan Gallagher and Derek Fenner of Bootstrap Productions of Lowell. Writers, musicians, photographers, painters, and more contributed work for the 200-plus page book. The book…
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Today’s NYTimes includes a report by Seth Mydans about the latest developments in the Khmer Rouge trials in Cambodia. This is part of our history in Lowell because many of our neighbors from that nation came to the U.S. because of the Khmer Rouge’s epic crime against humanity. These neighbors carry personal stories of the genocide…
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Here’s a poem from another November, from a weekend spent with friends in central Massachusetts. The poem first appeared in Jim Dyment’s VYU arts magazine that documented Lowell’s cultural scene at the turn of the new century and kept going. You can see back issues online at www.vyumagazine.com. Jim works at…
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boston.com this morning has a report on the new president of Phillips Academy in Andover. John G. Palfrey Jr. was named 15th head of school, the board of trustees said in a statement. Palfrey is currently a professor and vice dean for library and information resources at Harvard Law. ……
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The South Common did not host a Veterans Day event yesterday, but I was thinking about Veterans Day while walking my Boston Terrier just before suppertime. The sky in the west was filled with upswept periwinkle clouds trimmed in coral pink below. In the past few days the trees reached…
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We’ve been fortunate in early November with several warm days, but the cold weather will get here. The Lowell Transitional Living Center, “the Shelter” on Middlesex Street, needs $45,000 to cover costs for its expanded winter shelter program when the facility takes in as many as 50 more people each…
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