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Diary in the Time of Coronavirus (8) by Paul Hudon May 31 In Consciousness, his only volume of memoirs, John Updike proposes two life-defining questions. First, Why me? Second, Why here? Identity and place. He paired the right questions, only, being Updike, he put them back to front. Place comes first…
Read More »My co-blogger Marie Sweeney writes about making slumgullion at home. The first time I read that word I knew I had to work it in to a poem. Turns out the dish she makes (and a lot of us make) has a bunch of names. I only knew it as…
Read More »Orchardist and artist Linda Hoffman writes about fruit in this post from her blog on May 31. Blueberries on the way. And here’s her latest post from June 7 about the way water moves on Old Frog Pond Farm in Harvard, Mass. Early Morning Pond View, 2020, watercolor (Linda…
Read More »Jack McDonough had a long career in academic and corporate communications and the media as a writer and editor. He proudly identifies as an “ink-stained wretch.” Our readers know him as an occasional contributor to this blog and as a past essayist for the Sunrise public-affairs radio program at UMass…
Read More »Diary in the Time of Coronavirus (7) by Paul Hudon 24 May, 2020 ‘The fitful apprehension of history’ is a phrase I picked up four years ago come September. Apparently it was coined by Fredric Jameson, “an American Marxist philosopher.” This poses a problem because the phrase could be very…
Read More »Diary in the Time of Coronavirus (6) by Paul Hudon 17 May Today would be Bob’s 95th birthday, my aforementioned brother, the navy guy. He died in November 2013, ‘’in the 89th year of his age.’’ I prefer that antique way of telling a person’s age. It’s more accurate because…
Read More »Isolation Scenes IV By Doug Sparks One: While driving the backroads of Groton, I waited for a turkey vulture to clear the road. He had been eating the guts of a turtle, whose shell was shimmering in the sun’s radiance. The vulture flew to the top of a nearby tree…
Read More »The latest blog post by Linda Hoffman from Old Frog Pond Farm in Harvard, Mass. ‘Man in a Maze’ basket by Pima people
Read More »Haverhill Student Protests/CSN&Y (1970) By Mike McCormick My mind swirled as I drove to Haverhill High School one early May morning in 1970. The day before, a group of classmates had begun protesting President Nixon’s April 30 decision to expand the Vietnam War into Cambodia. Another set of classmates, including…
Read More »Michael Casey’s latest book is There It Is: New & Selected Poems, which is available at loompress.com or amazon.com. He lives in the Merrimack Valley of Massachusetts. Remembrance . a pretty girl on my street wanted to be a writer and was taking home economic courses because women are not…
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