Menu
The following is a poem from the early 1980s, which appears in my book “Strong Place” (1984). This poem was also one of four featured in Yankee magazine in 2009. Merrimack Street is the same and different today, with preserved buildings and a new array of businesses for the most part.…
Read More »MassMoments reminds us that on this day – July 23, 1846 – Henry David Thoreau after walking from his Walden Pond cabin to do an errand – found himself in the Concord town jail for refusing to pay his back taxes. His was just an over-night stay – as…
Read More »With so many gardens going strong and greenhouses putting out their last tomato plants and marigolds, I was reminded of this poem that was a favorite of mine when I started writing. —PM . Frau Bauman, Frau Schmidt, and Frau Schwartze Gone the three ancient ladies Who creaked on the…
Read More »Following is an excerpt from my manuscript for the book “Mill Power: Reclaiming Lowell’s Place and Story,” which I wrote for the National Park Service in 2011-12. The book covers the years 1966 to 2012, documenting the origin and impact of the national park in Lowell in the context of…
Read More »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 »