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Tom Sexton is the author of Cummiskey Alley: New and Selected Lowell Poems, which will be published by Loom Press next week. To order, please visit www.loompress.com Autumn by Tom Sexton What is it about a late autumn afternoon with birch and sumac leaves drifting down, that…
Read More »Spurred by our Texas friend Frank Wagner’s essay about meeting Patti Smith in the late 1970s, an encounter with a cranky, thirty-something, tightly wound artist, we’re reprising this review-essay about Patti Smith’s most recent book, Year of the Monkey, just out in paperback. Note that former Lowell Sun journalists Nancye…
Read More »Frank Wagner of south Texas is an occasional contributor to this publication. Today he writes about meeting the singer-songwriter Patti Smith after a 1978 performance in south Texas. Smith was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1978 but she’s also a poet and author. In 2010,…
Read More »Joe Blair of Iowa posted this lyrical prose on Facebook today. He allowed us to reprint it here. He’s got roots in Greater Lowell and is a past contributor to the Howe blog. Joe is the author of By the Iowa Sea: A Memoir (2012), which O, The Oprah Magazine…
Read More »From his home hub in downtown Lowell, writer, scholar, and teacher George Chigas covers a lot of territory on foot. Like Henry Thoreau who “traveled a good deal in Concord,” George will send us occasional reports on his movements and what he sees, hears, and feels. Walking Home from Market…
Read More »Susan April sent us a new essay about a time when she was growing up in Lowell in the Highlands neighborhood. I don’t want to give away the turn in the narrative, so I’ll leave it here. Susan is a past contributor to this publication. Her work has appeared in…
Read More »Dave Robinson is the author of the prodigious Sweeney in Effable: Five Books About Enjoying the View. This poem is from his new poetry manuscript, Nocturne in ‘White’ or ‘Yellow’. Enough by Dave Robinson A pair of reddish things unearthed beside green slabs of moss. Their wide threshold of…
Read More »The Kerouac Book River “The Kerouac Book River is inspired by the legendary Merrimack and Concord rivers, which run through the author’s hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts. At the “source” of the river is the canon of first editions, beginning in 1950 with The Town and the City. Plentiful waters stir to…
Read More »Chath pierSath’s new book, ON EARTH BENEATH SKY, is forthcoming in about ten days. The poems and prose sketches describe his journey as a genocide survivor from Cambodia, boy refugee starting over in Colorado, and new American finding a place in this country and his own place in society. He…
Read More »In keeping with the education theme this month, here’s an excerpt from a memory book I’m writing. Some sections are built on related, even if partial, recollections—in this case experiences during my college years. At times, memories can be like bits of mica shining in a chunk of stone you…
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