Our far-flung Western net-desk night editor Tom Sexton, once the Poet Laureate of Alaska and always a distinguished alumnus of Lowell High School, sent this new poem inspired by a work of art he bought from Bill Giavis, a legend at the Brush Gallery in Market Mills downtown.—PM .…
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This week’s rain and thaw are not good for ice on local ponds, brooks, and lakes, but January is hockey season, so I thought I’d dig this composition out of the vault this morning. The poem was first published in my second full-length collection of poems, Middle Distance (1989). Sweeney’s…
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This poem, from Tom Sexton’s recent book Bridge Street at Dusk (Loom Press, 2012), connects to the “Moody Gardens” post below.—PM . Manny He was a minor god of the underworld whose euphonious name brought no reply if mentioned during the day, a lounge singer, a god of sirens and…
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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOvak8xeMtc[/youtube]
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In keeping with Paul’s nod to Robert Frost, let’s remember another Merrimack Valley poet even more associated with the beauty, wiles and challenges of a snow storm. John Greenleaf Whittier – a rural Haverhill-born poet – offers the narrated tale of a snowstorm in early 1800’s New England. Let we forget – Whittier has the…
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Dust of Snow The way a crow Shook down on me The dust of snow From a hemlock tree . Has given my heart A change of mood And saved some part Of a day I had rued. —Robert Frost (1874-1963) . “Frost’s own poetical education began in San Francisco…
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Thanks to journalist John Collins and the Sun newspaper for reporting on artist Vassilios “Bill” Giavis’s gift of a print of one of his classic paintings to the Town of Dracut. The original painting was based on a poem of mine. Read the story here. A Hundred Nights of Winter…
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On this snowy night, from Alaska comes a poem with a snowy owl, courtesy of our desk in the West manned by Tom Sexton. Here’s a Lowell memory for our readers. For those who don’t know, Tom Sexton is a distinguished alumnus of Lowell High School and former Poet Laureate…
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Along with Henri Marchand’s “fruitcake” essay, the re-appearance of this poem has become part of the Christmas tradition for this blog. I wrote the first draft of this poem in 1976, and worked on it on-and-off for a long time. I had in mind the extensive outdoor lighting displays in Dracut (the…
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We have a new poem by Tom Sexton of Lowell and Alaska and Maine.—PM . The Last Sunday Train Little did I know back then when I walked beside my father to the old North Station, after Warren Spahn and Johnny Sain pitched a doubleheader, that the Boston Braves would…
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