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It will take me some time to process the multitude of impressions and facts of this past weekend’s Kerouac Festival, but I want to share some initial observations: 1) We accomplished the goal of drawing a larger and more varied literary audience to the city with a broader menu of…
Read More »Trees are changing color on the South Common. The early reds, golds, rusts, and yellow-oranges in every variation multiply by the day. Green leaves still predominate, but won’t last more than a couple of more weeks. I walked the dog this morning in air that was colder than cool. This is…
Read More »The Boston Herald reminds us in an AP story just added to their on-line edition, that a newly expanded version of Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! awaits aficionados of Jack Kerouac and his literary world. LOWELL – The city of Lowell is set to hold an expanded version its annual festival celebrating…
Read More »Don’t miss Rachel Briere’s article in the Lowell Sun Today – “Never missing a beat.” She sets the stage for the greatly revamped upcoming “Lowell Celebrates Kerouac” aka Jack Kerouac Literary Festival in these opening paragraphs: The dawning of October in New England ushers in a number of unique elements setting the…
Read More »How many films have been made about a poem? Here’s one. Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” isn’t for everyone’s taste, but it did its part to shake up a lot of people’s thinking and sent a shock wave through the literary world. It’s been described as the second most influential long poem of…
Read More »Antje Duvekot (web photo courtesy of overtheline.com) Poet and folksinger Antje Duvekot, winner of the Boston Music Award for Outstanding Folk Act of the Year, will perform in the Urban Village Artist Series (UVAS) at the Jack Kerouac Literary Festival on Friday, Oct. 1, at 8.30 pm at the Old…
Read More »No, this is not Brew’d Awakening on Market Street on a Thursday night. It’s Syria. The NTimes online today has a lead story on a literary freedom outpost in Damascas, where poets and writers stand up and speak freely at the House of Poetry, where the posters on the wall…
Read More »Russell Banks (web photo courtesy of cmu.edu) After 22 years of the annual Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! festival on the first weekend of October, the long-time organizers and new allies and partners came together to boost the festival to a higher orbit. The re-named Jack Kerouac Literary Festival will open on…
Read More »The NYT today has an article about the current exhibition of photographs by poet Allen Ginsberg at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The article in the paper includes a photograph of Kerouac making a goofy face on the street in NY in 1953. Read the article by…
Read More »Common . Nineteenth-century designers saw parks as breathing spaces whose trees would pump oxygen through tenement and mansion alike. Even the vocabulary of green spaces freshens speech—grove and bee, clover and pebble, pine cone and jay. Seagulls on the common across the street from my family’s house stand as stout…
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