Growing up in the 1950s and ’60s, I lived in a mostly French-Canadian ethnic world. Two sets of my first-cousins had an Irish-American mother and father respectively. St. Patrick’s Day for my father meant a green tie with a shamrock for Mass on the Sunday closest to March 17. My…
Today March 15, is the infamous Ides of March, the day Julius Caesar was assassinated by a group of Roman Senators led by Brutus and Cassius. The murder became the subject of one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays. Consequently, most high school students readily remember the eerie…
Mr. Nason Skating on the Merrimack . In March of the year we were in kindergarten, Mr. Nason told us how on one cold night he skated from Lowell to beyond Manchester where we knew the river vanished with a sigh and the moon’s breath was frozen to the ground,…
Spring Fever Last Sunday in February. Neighbors lean on warm cars. Snow pulls away from the grass. At the corner variety store kids huddle out front, hustle off, scattering baseball card wrappers colorful as April tulips. . —Paul Marion (c) 1984, 2014 .
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. . My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse…
Snow and icy rain are coming tomorrow. On Friday everyone will want to get out, and there’s a great option for Friday night. If you attended the JFK Memorial Concert in Durgin Hall last November, you know how well these musicians play. On top of an impressive program to be…
Welcome to a new literary contributor to the blog, writer Mark Reimer, who is on the staff at UMass Lowell. —PM . Interior Humbaba’s sixth aura was given to the forests; I read this on the train and note contrails in the sky marking off our path to the…
On January 29, 1963, Robert Frost, my favorite poet died. Many years ago, in a 9th grade Literature class, a football coach/English Teacher “forced” me to memorize one of his poems ….I thank that man even today, since the poem has been my favorites ever since. I hope you enjoy…
In the 1980s I played some serious softball with the Burgess Construction team in the Dracut Softball League. “Richie” Burgess, as I knew him, played on some of those teams, including the championship team in 1988. I wrote a poem, “Bragging Rights,” to commemorate that winning season, and following is…
Jean LeBlanc is an Assistant Professor of English and Developmental Studies at Sussex County Community College in northwestern New Jersey. She was raised in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, and still identifies as a New Englander with pride (especially, as she writes, “being so close to various New York sports teams that shall…