Menu
Ray Manzarek, one of the giants of 1960s rock and roll, died yesterday at the age of 74. The co-founder of The Doors performed in Lowell once with The Doors, at the Commodore Ballroom in 1967, and twice with poet Michael McClure at the Smith Baker Center for the annual…
Read More »Gary Snyder portrait (web photo courtesy of seapoetry.wordpress) One of my early poetry heroes was Gary Snyder, who turned 83 this month. Not only was I drawn to Snyder’s concise and precise back-country poems of the 1960s and ’70s, but I was also in tune to his thoughts about repairing…
Read More »MassMoments reminds us that writer Lucy Larcom – one of Lowell’s iconic Mill Girls in her youth, died on this day April 17, 1893. In her autobiography A New England Girlhood, Lucy Larcom wrote: “From the beginning Lowell had a high reputation for good order, morality, piety, and all that…
Read More »Ryan Gallagher, Chuck Levenstein, and I had a good afternoon in Gloucester reading poems for about 20 people at the Gloucester Writers Center, which is a small house on East Main Street that was once the home of poet Vincent Ferrini, longtime poet laureate of Gloucester and a disciple of…
Read More ». Easter . To get to church you have to cross the river, First breadwinner for the town, its wide Mud-colored currents cleansing forever The swill-making villages at its side. The disinfected voice of the minister For a moment is one of the clues, But he is talking of nothing…
Read More »Church of the Immaculate Conception . Because the massive side door is slightly ajar at 6 a.m., I decide to pay a visit, to inhabit my past. Inside it could be night. Old women kneeling. Perfume thick as mist. To my surprise the man with the purple-red stain on half…
Read More »The 2nd Annual Lowell Writers and Publishers Winter Roundup is set for this Saturday, Feb. 23, 12.30 to 4 pm, upstairs at the Old Court Irish pub, Central and Middle streets in downtown Lowell. See who is behind the books and pick up the newest publications by area authors. Among…
Read More »Here’s a hat tip to the climate-change demonstrators in Washington, D.C., who are speaking on behalf of the planet this holiday weekend. Lowelltown is as white tonight as the monuments in the capital city. I wrote this poem after a family trip to Washington in the summer of 2004. There…
Read More »The Lowell Poets reading at the Gloucester Writers Center has been rescheduled for Saturday, April 6, at 1 pm, in the fishing hub of the North Shore. Also, with Winterfest pushed ahead to Saturday, Feb. 23, that means the 2nd Annual Lowell Writers and Publishers Winter Roundup at the Old…
Read More »The 2nd Annual Lowell Writers and Publishers Winter Roundup is set for Saturday, February 23, 12.30 to 4.00 pm, upstairs at the Old Court Irish pub at Central and Middle streets in downtown Lowell. Publishers and writers attending include playwright Jack Neary, poet and memoir-writer Judith Dickerman-Nelson, Sweeney-and-Seawell creator Dave Robinson, John…
Read More »