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Picking up on Tony Sampas’s documentary photographs of Cote’s Market on Salem Street, here’s an excerpt from a poem by Marie Louise St. Onge that was published in the book “French Class: French Canadian-American Writings on Identity, Culture, and Place” (Loom Press, 1999).—PM . from One Vegetable and Silence for…
Read More »The NYTimes today reports on dismal results in a recent national test on science knowledge administered to 4th, 8th, and 12th graders (the 12th grade sample is much smaller than the elementary school samples). Read the results here, and get the NYT if you want more. But the results showed…
Read More »NYTimes columnist David Brooks today says it’s imperative that 21st-century America be a talent magnet to stay at the front of the pack in the global economic and social long-distance race. For our purposes on this blog, substitute Lowell and/or Merrimack Valley every time he mentions America, and think about…
Read More »“. . . There was at the time of the Civil War, a group of young men and women hardly more than boys and girls, who frequented our house, played croquet on the lawn and bowled in the long, low bowling alley; old when I remember it, and covered from…
Read More »Tom Sexton sent a new poem from the coast of Maine where he’s wintering more easily than in the Alaskan icebox. He’s working on a new book of poems. Lowell (and all that that contains) is the subject. Look for the new collection in the fall. In the meantime, mark…
Read More »In the Boston Globe Magazine today, the Boston Uncommon feature highlights author Andre Dubus III of UMass Lowell and Newbury because he has a new book due out in February, “Townie,” a memoir about growing up and boxing and writing in Haverhill. Read the Q & A here, and get the Globe…
Read More »The following anecdote comes from writer Steve O’Connor, who got the report from a comrade downtown. Without revealing the protagonist so that he won’t get accosted at a later date on Central Street, I want to share this example of one man being a Superhero of the City for the…
Read More »We’re deep in the keep of winter now. This one feels like an old-fashioned winter. New England memory adds snow to past seasons. Lean winters don’t stick in the mind. There’s more talk of Florida lately now that we are past the holidays and snowbirds are jetting south for their weeks…
Read More »Cliff at Right Side has a detailed and helpful report on the meeting between Sen. Brown’s staff and a host of public officials and community folks in Pawtucketville. Read the notes here and Cliff’s take on what’s “right” and fair for the citizens concerned about proposed changes to the dam.
Read More »Brian Williams in 2006 reported on the back story of Robert Frost’s poem written for President Kennedy. See the clip of Frost reading and find out what happened. This is our Robert Frost of the Merrimack Valley, who grew up in Lawrence and graduated from Lawrence High School. Here’s the…
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