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Memory of an Afternoon Hot humid Manhattan afternoon. Broadway’s din is ear splittingly loud. Suddenly, from somewhere on high, as though from heaven, a hugely amplified voice booms that all traffic must now stop. The first hospital ship is in, the voice says, and it’s carrying the first wounded from…
Read More »With all “The Fighter” buzz, this is a good time re-run Tom Sexton’s poem about the local boxing legend. One of the best things about a good poem is how it stands up to repeated readings or listenings. Maybe Tom should do an audio recording of his Lowell poems. People…
Read More »Speaking of the power of cities, after two highly successful productions in Lowell (2008-09), the Massachusetts Poetry Festival will move its tents, workshops, coffeehouse readings, and auditorium events to downtown Salem in 2011, with a packed schedule of activities set for May 13 and 14. Keep checking www.masspoetry.org for updates as the…
Read More »Lowell-linked poet Joseph Donahue and his poems are examined in a dense and cerebral essay-review by Jeanne Heuving in the Seattle-based literary magazine “Golden Handcuffs Review” (Winter-Spring 2008). Read Heuving’s take on Donahue here. Joe has new fiction in the current issue of the magazine (Summer-Fall 2010), but unfortunately his selection is…
Read More »This poem comes from my days living in Pawtucketville in the 1980s. It was first published in “The Spanner,” the news bulletin of the now-Independent University Alumni Association at Lowell, related to UMass Lowell.—PM . 214 Sixth Avenue Bright snow at midnight in the shut-down neighborhood, Mute homes of folks I can’t…
Read More »TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS ‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there; The children were nestled all snug in their…
Read More »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 town) and Lowell, but especially as it evolved the dense array of Christmas decorations in Pawtucketville, between Mammoth Road and…
Read More »America’s First Poet, she is called. Anne Bradstreet of North Andover, originally part of Andover in the mid-1600’s when she moved to the frontier with her family from Cambridge (then Newtowne). She had sailed from England in 1630 with her husband to avoid religious persecution as Puritans. She was 18…
Read More »The NYTimes today has a long travel article about the bookstore culture in San Francisco with the expected mention of Lowell’s Jack Kerouac. Read the article here, and get the NYT if you want more.
Read More »One of our regular readers forwarded this notice about a poetry benefit event in Cambridge. Some of the poets involved have read recently in Lowell at the Kerouac Literary Festival and Massachusetts Poetry Festival. Sales of the anthology will support the work of Partners in Health in Haiti, which was…
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