Patrick Kavanagh: a Reader’s Experience For generations of Irish readers—for this one certainly—the poetry of Patrick Kavanagh is inextricably associated with Soundings, the anthology of prescribed poetry for the Leaving Certificate English curriculum that was a staple of Irish secondary education from the end of the 1960s until the mid-1990s.…
Divorce or Rebirth?? By Nick Cote Author’s Note: I wrote this piece soon after I made the very difficult decision to leave a very long term relationship and marriage in 2017. To me, writing is very cathartic and therapeutic. I write pieces such as this about my life as a…
Boarding School Blues: Chapter 29 By Louise Peloquin Ch. 29: Tempus Fugit Mundane activities filled Thanksgiving weekend. Maman asked Blanche to haul four large, mothball-perfumed boxes up from the basement. Long ago, they had served as receptacles for a wedding trousseau of fine linens and dainty lingerie. Although they had…
about:blank is a piece of writing that both defies categorization and pays homage to the great literary innovators of the 20th and early-21st century. It’s chimera-like, engaging in a process of making and remaking, of peeling away and collaging different viewpoints, times and experiences. It’s experience without ego, with the…
Our friend and occasional contributor to this blog Tom Sexton in Alaska sent us a poem that he brought back from a recent walk near his home in Anchorage. Tom’s latest book is a collection of his best poems about Lowell, Cummiskey Alley, available at loompress.com, on amazon, and at…
Boarding School Blues: Chapter 28 By Louise Peloquin Ch. 28: A Grocery Stop A bear hug replaced verbal goodbyes between the two friends. Blanche strutted down C’s front steps with a swing in her hips thinking of the Animals, the Dave Clark Five, Gerry and the Pacemakers and the other…
Beannachtaí Trasna are the words that leave me, they waft and wend their way to you from my acre in Ireland to your acre in Lowell and beyond, through earth, sea and sky…they mean Blessings Across. Happy New Year to all as December cedes to January, another year turns. We…
Virtual Schwarzenegger By David Daniel Every January my wife tells me I spend more time writing my list of New Year’s resolutions than I do keeping them. But not this year. 2022 is gonna be different. Okay, some resolutions I’ll probably fail with. Watch TV less, read more. Cut back…
The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. I have always followed my instincts in choosing books to recommend, so this posting is a little different. The five books explored here were selected by David Moskowitz, a thoughtful and dedicated course leader at Brandeis Lifelong…
The Bridge Gregory F. DeLaurier Early December and the trees in the forest had lost their leaves. Walking through it was like being in a cemetery, or among some ancient obelisks a lost people had erected eons ago, with a strange sadness over what once had been green, fully alive.…
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