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Poet Kay Ryan, who read her poems to an overflow crowd at UMass Lowell last spring, and three members of the Harvard University faculty are among the 22 recipients of the 2011 “genius grants” from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The Harvard professors are economist Roland Fryer,…
Read More »“The Names” Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night. A soft rain stole in, unhelped by any breeze, And when I saw the silver glaze on the windows, I started with A, with Ackerman, as it happened, Then Baxter and Calabro, Davis and Eberling, names falling into…
Read More »Hurricane Bob heading for New England (1991) In August 1991, Hurricane Bob roared through the Merrimack Valley in synch with an attempted coup in the USSR that eventually led to the Soviet Union’s downfall. I was at my desk listening to news and writing in my notebook. I later published…
Read More »Jennifer Myers in today’s SUN reports on the latest step in the City of Lowell’s effort to redevelop the Smith Baker Center on Merrimack Street near City Hall. Kudos to the SUN for making this Page One news. Her Facebook page has additional comments also. Allen Ginsberg and friends reading…
Read More »Following is an excerpt from the poem “Dearborn Suite” in the collection “News of the World” by Philip Levine (Knopf, 2009). . Dearborn Suite . 1. Middle-aged, supremely bored with his wife, hating his work, unable to sleep, he rises from bed to pace his mansion in slippers and robe,…
Read More »Hometown reporting on Philip Levine’s appointment as US Poet Laureate from the Fresno Bee in California. Levine was born in Detroit and started teaching at Fresno State in 1958. The university didn’t even have a creative writing program at the time. His close friend and fellow poet Peter Everwine,…
Read More »Poetry is front-page news online tonight. That’s different. The NYTimes tonight reports that Philip Levine is the new U.S. Poet Laureate. Read Charles McGrath’s article here, and get the NYT if you want more. Phil Levine was one of my poet-heroes when I started writing in the mid-1970s. I admired…
Read More »“Are you he who would assume a place to teach or to be a poet here in the States? The place is august, the terms obdurate.” —Walt Whitman
Read More »About ten days ago, NYTimes columnist Paul Krugman got to the core of the problem with the national Republican party. When one side opts out of the agreed-to rules of elections and governing in a democracy, the system cannot function effectively. If your attitude is going to be that you…
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 someone…
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