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The other day my friend John Suiter in Chicago sent me a short sketch of a street encounter that in its simplicity spoke volumes about respect for the rule of law among regular citizens in the USA. A former Boston resident, John is the author of Poets on the Peaks,…
Read More »With St Patrick’s Day and Lowell’s Irish Cultural Week coming up soon, here’s a rerun of a 2019 post on my blog about the ethnic practices in the area along with a couple of images including champion boxer Jackie Brady of Lowell. Click the link here.
Read More »Bill O’Connell has lived in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts since 1984. A retired social worker, he teaches literature and writing at Greenfield Community College. He is a past contributor to The Lowell Review and graduated from UMass Lowell. His books include When We Were All Still Alive (Open Field…
Read More »The 100th anniversary issue of The New Yorker magazine (Feb. 10) includes a literary scoop, the first publication of a previously unknown poem by Robert Frost (1874-1963). The short poem, “Nothing New,” dated 1918 in Amherst, Mass., is written in the front of a copy of his second book, North…
Read More »Bruce Springsteen (courtesy of Wikimedia Commons) “His songs will last as long as other people can see themselves in his songs.”–June Skinner Sawyers A few of the regular contributors to this blog kid each other and the readers about “There’s always a Lowell connection” to subjects and persons that come…
Read More »Artist Richard Marion at his Gallery 21, Hurd St, Lowell, c. 1979 (photo by Kevin Harkins) I’m posting this 2008 essay (later reprinted in 2018) for the benefit of visual artists and other folks in Lowell who have come to the city since the 1980s or later and may not…
Read More »Poet Joseph Donahue, with deep Lowell roots and who teaches at Duke University, has been actively publishing poetry as if he’s being chased by the hounds of Time across the national landscape. There’s a new notice full of praise in the Los Angeles Review of Books addressing his 2024 collection…
Read More »Dark-eyed junco (image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons) Whittier in the Woods Making cornbread during a storm, Which dropped a foot of snow on us, I saw the actual John Greenleaf In a wide-brimmed hat step from the woods Behind our house, his bushy beard icicled. When I waved, he raised…
Read More »Web photo courtesy of LIFE magazine, 1965 The Great Northeast Blackout of 1965 On November 9, 1965, when the lights went out from Lake Ontario east to Boston and south to New York City, sinking thirty million people at home or work into darkness, my family was ready to sit…
Read More »This post was first heard as a radio essay on the Sunrise program of WUML, 92.5 FM, at UMass Lowell. Executive producer Chris Dunlap assembled writers in the area for the daily essay feature, a popular component of the morning public affairs show. I have shared this essay with rh.com readers for several…
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