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New poem with Lowell setting in the latest issue of The Café Review in Portland, Maine, which has been around for a long time. I have three poems in this issue, and have been in the magazine previously. Kudos to them for keeping the magazine alive. The CR has interviews,…
Read More »Poet Tom Sexton (photo by Kevin Harkins) Thanks to Michael Burwell of Alaska for sending us two recent commentaries on the late Tom Sexton and his final book of poems, “Dark Cloud in Isabel Pass” (Loom Press, 2025). Michael’s review-essay appears in “Cirque” literary magazine of Alaska and Nancy Lord’s…
Read More »With his book Estate Sale, Dan Murphy won the 2024 Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry at the University of Utah Press. A writer with Lowell roots, he lives in the region with his family. Former US Poet Laureates Natasha Trethewey and Robert Pinsky call the book “a lovely…
Read More »Mike McCormack, originally of Haverhill, Mass., is a long-time resident of Alaska where he became a close friend of poet Tom Sexton (1940-2025). Mike is a past contributor to this blog and to The Lowell Review. He wrote this introduction for Tom’s final book, Dark Cloud in Isabel Pass, published…
Read More »From middle Massachusetts, Bill O’Connell sent us a poem about hardball math to show there are many dimensions to the old ballgame. Bill is a past contributor to the blog and The Lowell Review. His recent book is When We Were All Still Alive (Open Field Press, 2021). The…
Read More »Poems for Today by Chath pierSath These four poems by Chath pierSath, a past contributor to this blog, were written in response to recent headlines and the larger global conversation about means and ends. Chath is known for is writing about current affairs and historical matters. As an engaged artist,…
Read More »Robert Frost in Amesbury, Mass. (1897-1898). Who Knew? Well, somebody knew about this but I didn’t even though I’ve been in Amesbury for eight years. Plus, I’ve studied authors of the region since reading Thoreau’s “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers” in the 1970s. How did I miss…
Read More »This month is the 50th anniversary of the occupation of Phnom Penh by the brutal Khmer Rouge fighters in Cambodia. I was a junior at the University of Lowell in Massachusetts reading newspaper articles and watching TV reports as what we called the Vietnam War expanded in the region. None…
Read More »Tom Sexton at Northern Essex Community College, Haverhill, Mass. (photos by Kevin Harkins) Farewell to Our Friend Tom Sexton, American Poet (1940-2025) We learned from his wife Sharyn Sexton that our friend and fellow contributor to this blog Tom Sexton passed away at home in Alaska on March 12…
Read More »With St Patrick’s Day and Lowell’s Irish Cultural Week coming up soon, here’s a rerun of a 2019 post on my blog about the ethnic practices in the area along with a couple of images including champion boxer Jackie Brady of Lowell. Click the link here.
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