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Guilty Pleasures of the Fourth by Henri B. Marchand An essay from Henri Marchand, updated from its original 2006 version. As another Fourth of July holiday approaches the nightly cannonade of assorted firecrackers and whistling skyrockets has been steadily intensifying. These illegal blasts and crackles usually reach a crescendo over…
Read More »Historian Paul Hudon is the author The Valley & Its Peoples: An Illustrated History of the Lower Merrimack and a collection of poems, All in Good Time. A former college professor and museum curator, he lives in Lowell. For nine weeks he has been sending his diary entries to the…
Read More »Michael Leary-Owhin, London-based photographer and author of Exploring the Production of Urban Space: international comparisons of three post-industrial cities (University of Chicago Press, 2016), a study of Lowell; Manchester, England; and a section of Vancouver, Canada, who we profiled last month on this site, has posted a new batch of…
Read More »Frank Wagner sends his poems to the Howe blog from his home in Texas. He’s a retired radio newsman. Going Home After Basketball By Frank Wagner Going home after basketball practice meant walking home in the dark. During those months, after the thrill of starting school in the steaming heat…
Read More »Equality and Justice: What Can We Do? By Anthony Nganga Dear Community Members, The protests precipitated by the police killing of George Floyd and numerous other black Americans are an indication of people’s frustrations from deliberate inequalities and injustices they have faced for a very long time. It has become…
Read More »Best Back Seat Passenger By Nancye Tuttle My grandson Jack turned 16 on April 4. He’s a tall, handsome kid with a winning smile and friendly personality. Like other Massachusetts 16-year-olds, he couldn’t wait for the big day because it meant one thing — he could get his learner’s permit.…
Read More »Eagle River Virus By Mike McCormick I’m sitting on my deck listening to the ebullient calls of ruby-crowned kinglets as they flit from branch to branch high atop birch and spruce trees. My wife Katy is transplanting geraniums from inside our arctic entry room to outdoor flower boxes. We are…
Read More »Diary in the Time of Coronavirus (8) by Paul Hudon May 31 In Consciousness, his only volume of memoirs, John Updike proposes two life-defining questions. First, Why me? Second, Why here? Identity and place. He paired the right questions, only, being Updike, he put them back to front. Place comes first…
Read More »My co-blogger Marie Sweeney writes about making slumgullion at home. The first time I read that word I knew I had to work it in to a poem. Turns out the dish she makes (and a lot of us make) has a bunch of names. I only knew it as…
Read More »Shout Out to All the Dads by Chris Wilkinson “What’s happening in the video?” Hey, you know what was a hard conversation for the white father of a brown son? Explaining race-based injustice to an almost six year old (who I’m certain will have struggles in life that I can’t…
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