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Digging . Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun. Under my window a clean rasping sound When the spade sinks into gravelly ground: My father, digging. I look down Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds Bends low, comes up…
Read More »I enjoyed this article about Carl Yastrzemski by Dan Shaughnessy in yesterday’s Globe. Web photo courtesy of boston.com (Boston Globe photo by Stan Grossfeld (c) 2008)
Read More »Here’s a poem by my old friend Eric Linder, a poet and bookstore owner. He had the Chelmsford Bookstore in Chelmsford Center for a long time and now runs Yellow Umbrella Books in Chatham, Mass., right on the main street.—PM . Nine-Foot Hoop . I put up a basketball hoop…
Read More »The Huffington Post today has an interesting feature about authors who have had success with books they have published themselves. There’s a long tradition of this type of entrepreneurship. Blogging, websites, e-books, and other innovations have taken self-publishing to a whole new and higher orbit. The means of production are now…
Read More »Read the NYTimes report on last night’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame annual induction ceremony. The class of 2011 is an eclectic bunch and the presenters and performers on the program made it even more so. When you read about these events or watch them on TV, you plug…
Read More »Tom Wolfe titled one of his books “A Man in Full,” and the word “full” came to me when I tried to think of a word to describe the story that Andre Dubus III tells us in his fiercely honest new memoir “Townie.” He grew up between two worlds, the…
Read More »Jack Kerouac was born on March 12, 1922; jazz man Charlie Parker died one March 12th. From the Barnes and Noble people, here is a literary comment on author Jack Kerouac and jazz man Charlie Parker. Thanks to Alan Crane on Facebook for the link. For the schedule of Kerouac…
Read More »13 TOWNIE, by Andre Dubus. (Norton, $25.95.) In this memoir, Dubus explores his attachment to violence and his relationship with his famous father. 1
Read More »David Brooks in today’s NYTimes wonders out loud if the contemporary American behavioral trend of heightened self-approval may be weakening the national civic culture. He often asks such “community” questions as he tries to puzzle out the workings of our democratic-republic system. He makes a comment on the connection to toxic partisanship in…
Read More »Prof. Margaret Knight, UMass Lowell The hugely successful Lunchtime Lectures series at the UMass Lowell Inn & Conference Center resumes on Monday, March 28, at 12 noon, with Prof. Margaret Knight of the UMass Lowell Dept. of Nursing taking a close look at “Diversity in Health Care Professions,” an important topic…
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