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A Walk Before the Storm By Prudence Brighton Juniper turned toward me and announced, “I haven’t had fresh air in a long time.” She is six and had just finished her remote learning for the day. We were out for a walk before a winter storm closed in. Walking with…
Read More »The city of Lowell recently announced that the School Committee districts for the 2021 Lowell City Election have been set. Under the settlement of the Voting Rights Lawsuit brought against the city, the method of electing councilors and school committee members would change from the all members elected at large…
Read More »Whether a reader concurs with Chaucer’s view of Aprille as inspirational or agrees with Eliot’s claim that it “is the cruelest month,” April is National Poetry Month in the USA and April 29, 2021, is National Poetry Day in Ireland. So, we begin the month by introducing four poems by…
Read More »The Paper Route By Jacqueline Cayer Nelson McDonald Reviewed by Richard Howe When asked to list my favorite activities, reading would be near the top. Because history would also be high on that list, most of the books I read are nonfiction. But every so often I pick up a…
Read More »Black Fingernails and Calluses By Mark Cote Every old man wants to tell the story of when he was somebody. When he knew what to do, where to be and when. When he had a routine to his day, even had a title at the job he spent more than…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. Getting tired standing for hours in line waiting to vote in Georgia? Want someone to give you water or a snack? If you live in Georgia, that is now illegal. It’s just one of many restrictions the…
Read More »Low Tide on the Merrimack By Cody Kucker The river’s dropped beneath the bundled scraps of wind-pruned trees, abandoned now and dammed. Stray branches split and thin the rivulets, silvered and made vitreous by the sun. Canals form, levied by skippable stones that, like the branches, have carried here and…
Read More »Grand Jeté or the Great Leap in Popular American Ballet By Malcolm Sharps [Author suggestion: Listen to Copeland’s Appalachian Spring while reading this] No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and…
Read More »The B.F. Butler Cooperative Bank was founded in Lowell in 1901 by members of the family of Benjamin F. Butler, the notable Civil War general and Massachusetts politician. The bank continued in operation until 2010 when it was acquired by People’s United Bank. I recently found an old but undated…
Read More »For the month of March we have been showcasing writers and writing who have engaged with the Irish language. On the final post for this month Trasna is pleased to share the work of poet, Dairena Ní Chinnéide, a bilingual poet from the West Kerry Gaeltacht of Corca Dhuibhne. Ní…
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