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Poet Maggie Dietz of UMass Lowell In her weekly Substack newsletter, ‘New England Literary News,’ writer Nina MacLaughlin shares her view of a new collection of poems by Maggie Dietz of the UMass Lowell Dept. of English. Readers can subscribe to New England Literary News here. Here is the brief…
Read More »Born in Lowell, poet Matt W. Miller has published several award-winning collections of poetry. He lives with his family in southern New Hampshire. The prestigious journal Tupelo Quarterly features new work by Matt in the current issue. Here’s the link to the page (note the small arrows to advance to…
Read More »This prose poem appears in my book What Is the City? (2006), which is out of print but sometimes available in used condition on internet sites. Jackie Brady was a champion boxer in Lowell, Mass., in the 1960s. The local scene from the 1980s described here predates the easing of…
Read More »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…
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