Here’s a poem from Tom Sexton’s new book, Cummiskey Alley: New and Selected Lowell Poems, which is available at www.loompress.com Triangle Luncheonette by Tom Sexton With its gleaming black-and-white marble floor and even its exotic name, Luncheonette, it could never be mistaken for a lowly diner like the Club…
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George Chigas’ Review of On Earth Beneath Sky by Chath pierSath In the aftermath of genocide, survivors undergo a lifelong process of healing in an attempt to make sense of the traumatic events that ruptured their lives. They strive to come to a new understanding of themselves and the…
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Nancy and I have been attending the Moby Dick Marathon at the New Bedford Whaling Museum since 1997, the beginning of a New Bedford tradition. We’ve only missed two over the 25 years since then. I wrote this a few years ago right after the reading of the final chase…
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Thanks to our regular contributor Stephen O’Connor for bringing us another essay by Malcolm Sharps, who was born in England and has lived in Hungary many years. About this commentary on Thomas Wolfe’s iconic novel Of Time and the River, Steve tells us, “I’m glad that I got something of…
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Five Rows Down and Three Across by Frank Wagner Five rows down and three across Through wild high grass of the burial ground We looked for old laid bones that could not be found. A generation has passed since his body was laid, Under piled dirt this skin and…
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Joe Blair is an occasional contributor to this publication. He lives in Iowa but grew up in the Merrimack Valley. His first book By the Iowa Sea: A Memoir (2012, Simon & Schuster) established him as a national voice. This prose sketch first appeared on Facebook in November, 2020. IT…
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Two days ago, Denis Barrett, coordinator of Cork Learning City, wrote to colleagues including John Wooding, former professor and provost at UMass Lowell who leads Lowell: City of Learning. The two partner organizations promote lifelong learning in their cities, and this year brought out the Cork-Lowell writing anthology ATLANTIC CURRENTS,…
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Catching Perfect Spirals Trees change at night to yellow, orange, brown. On warm afternoons my friends and I, boys and girls, Raced downfield to catch every perfect spiral. We tackled each other as if trying to hurt one another When all we wanted was to be good at what we…
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Although I was born in Lowell (est. 1826), in the Centralville section, I grew up in Dracut (est. 1701) from the age of two through my college years. My neighborhood’s colonial-era name was New Boston Village, but that wasn’t used when I was there. We didn’t have a name for…
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