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Last Sunday, June 27, 2021, several hundred people from across the region gathered on Market Street at the Western Canal to witness the dedication of the Philip L. Shea Bridge. The cement and steel structure that was totally rebuilt in 2019 now bears the name of the only individual to…
Read More »Eric Linder’s new book is The Blue in the Eye of the Girl at La Jolla: New & Selected Poems. His work has appeared in Harvard Magazine, The Quarterly, and The Annual of Light Verse and Funny Poems. He has owned Yellow Umbrella Books in Chatham, Mass., on Cape Cod…
Read More »In honor of Juneteenth, here are some snippets of African-American history with Lowell connections: Harry “Bucky” Lew, born in Lowell in 1884, was the first African-American to play professional basketball. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. preached in Lowell on April 12, 1953, at the First United Baptist Church on Church…
Read More »Nina MacLaughlin of The Boston Globe (6-6-21) reviews Matthew W. Miller’s new book of poems, cover-to-cover about the Merrimack River and Lowell: “In his hewn and forceful new collection of poetry, “Tender the River” (Texas Review), Matthew W. Miller makes a coursing book-length portrait of the Merrimack River, its…
Read More »The Allied invasion of Normandy – D-Day – occurred on this day in 1944. In the pre-dawn hours, thousands of British and American paratroopers jumped into the dark and stormy night. Though they mostly landed far from their designated drop zones and in scattered small bunches, their mere presence was…
Read More »WEARING A FEATHERED WIDE-BRIMMED GRAY HAT, Bob Dylan could’ve been a Mexican balladeer with a new Durango song, bouncing on stage and stamping his whole leg in time to the drum. Ramblin’ Jack Elliot dedicated “Me and Bobby McGee” to Jack Kerouac, who as a kid had played King of…
Read More »Many of us are discovering that the most amazing things can be achieved when people pool their talents and resources, even during a pandemic. Maybe especially during a pandemic. And this week’s post on Trasna, the ‘Radio Drama in a Virtual Realm’ project, is the result of just such a…
Read More »Yesterday I wrote a profile of Gustavus Fox, a Lowell resident who served as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy during the Civil War. In composing that article, I came across a letter from Montgomery Blair to Fox dated January 31, 1861. Blair, who Lincoln would appoint to his cabinet…
Read More »Trasna is pleased to present a work of historical fiction, ‘Hope against Hope’ by Sheena Wilkinson. This is the third outstanding work of historical fiction by the multi-award-winning Sheena Wilkinson. It follows the fantastically successful ‘Star by Star’, which won the Children’s Books Ireland Honour Award for Fiction in 2018…
Read More »One more in my series in the spirit of “Lowell Walks” from the days when I hit the trail each weekend, usually in the morning. Lotta water under the canal bridge since 2009. — PM Scenes From an Urban Redevelopment Zone by Paul Marion Garcia-Brogan’s (web photo courtesy of mami-eggroll.com)…
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