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Jack Kerouac was born in the Centralville neighborhood in Lowell on March 12, 1922. He pictures his birth in his novel Doctor Sax, one of his “Lowell books.” He would be 101 years old today. His hometown pulled out all the stops last year for a Centennial celebration with a…
Read More »About a week ago, the Boston Globe published an excellent article about street hockey culture in Massachusetts as influenced by red-hot Bruins’ teams going back to the Orr-Esposito Era. Matt Porter of the Globe wondered if the surging B’s of today will pump up street hockey for this generation of…
Read More »Our far-flung contributor Jim Provencher in Australia sent us a poem in response to my essay about hometown baseball from a few days ago (“Organized Ball”). Jim spent youthful days in Portland, Maine, playing Babe Ruth League, high school, and American Legion baseball. Here’s what he told us: “It’s weird,…
Read More »Tom Sexton, a frequent contributor to this blog, sent us a new poem that he worked on for some time. The length of a poem doesn’t guarantee that the composition was written swiftly. In the title, Yellowhead is the Yellowhead Highway, a main route in Western Canada. I like the…
Read More »A new poem from our regular contributor Tom Sexton, poet of the Atlantic and Pacific sides of our continent. A former Poet Laureate of Alaska, Tom is on the list of distinguished alumni of Lowell High School, the one in Massachusetts. (FYI, Lowell High School in San Francisco, named for…
Read More »Sonic Boom by Paul Marion The plane crashed. The pilot survived. I don’t know if I saw this or was told about it by my parents or remember the incident because I heard others describe it. In my mind I see myself in real time either standing in the…
Read More »Our frequent contributor Tom Sexton sent a new poem from the coast of Maine where he is spending the winter—on break from Alaska. Tom is the author of many collections of poetry including Cummiskey Alley: New and Selected Lowell Poems and Li Bai Rides a Celestial Dolphin Home. He is a…
Read More »This special post collects the remarks, readings, and music from the memorial service for Bob Martin of Lowell. Thanks to the contributors who gave permission to reprint their selections. The RichardHowe.com blog is sharing the proceedings to document the family and community recognition of Bob’s passing. He was one of…
Read More »Farewell, Bob Martin We learned this week that Bob Martin, singer-songwriter of the first rank, passed away after a long illness. Music guru Dave Perry has a tribute on Facebook. Bob was a friend of mine for a long time. I met him in the 1980s when he was already…
Read More »Alexander Fhionnuisce is a writer in the Republic of Ireland. He is a past contributor to this blog. On Invasions II – 01/08/2022 by Alexander Fhionnuisce I told myself to build the monument and let it shine like the sun, After I’d watched it settle, the cement, and all…
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