From: “A Christmas Childhood,” Patrick Kavanagh (1943) “Outside the cow-house my mother Made the music of milking; The light of her stable-lamp was a star And the frost of Bethlehem made it twinkle. A water-hen screeched in the bog, Mass-going feet Crunched the wafer-ice on the pot-holes, Somebody wistfully…
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Here are some audios and videos for your holiday enjoyment. First, a couple of songs written (lyrics and music) by Charlie Gargiulo. Both are sung by Patti Sardella and produced by Elliott Jacobowitz. Next we have an old favorite from 2012, Lowell recites “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” Finally, there’s…
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Here is another of our Christmas classics: Paul Marion’s “Oranges at Christmas.” Oranges at Christmas By Paul Marion This week, my wife, Rosemary, bought a bag of small navel oranges at Market Basket, the first of these babies for the season. When I opened the plastic bag the twelve baseball-sized…
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This essay was initially published in The Lowell Sun on December 14, 2020. Can We Honor A Native Son? By Suzanne Beebe Jack Kerouac is a world-renowned writer. He opened new avenues for American writers of the 20th century. He was central to the Beat Movement of the 1950s…
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The Power of Non-Violence: The Enduring Legacy of Richard Gregg, a Biography by John Wooding A Review by Chath pierSath I had no idea who Richard Gregg was until I read The Power of Non-Violence: The Enduring Legacy of Richard Gregg by John Wooding. The book could not have come…
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Congratulations to artist, writer and farmer Linda Hoffman of Old Frog Pond Farm & Studio in Harvard, Mass. (and our sometimes contributor) for joining the ranks to commentators on WBUR. Linda’s essay on the apple orchard at the Winter Solstice is now online. Also, Linda has a terrific post based…
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Mexicali Angels By Jim Provencher A chorus of angels soars through the dusty streets of a Mexicali morning. It could be anywhere along the Line—cartel-torn, half-deserted, furtive, uneasy. Still, children are singing— It’s Christmastime after all, and I follow the sound into a white-washed adobe chapel where small…
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Lowell’s Matthew Ludvino is a professional filmmaker and editor whose documentary credits as an editor include Year of the Bull and The Man in the Mask. This year, Matt focused some of his considerable talent on creating a film version of one of my Lowell Cemetery tours. In this effort,…
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Former Alaskan poet Laureate Tom Sexton’s latest volume of poetry is “Cummiskey Alley.” The collection is named after Lowell’s first Irishman, Hugh Cummiskey, who walked from Boston to Lowell with a group of Irish laborers. Cummiskey and many other Irish labors dug miles of canals in Lowell, and helped birth…
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