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Tom Sexton, a frequent contributor to this blog, sent us a new poem that he worked on for some time. The length of a poem doesn’t guarantee that the composition was written swiftly. In the title, Yellowhead is the Yellowhead Highway, a main route in Western Canada. I like the…
Read More »Spring training reminds me of the magnetic pull of baseball in our culture, even for those of us who don’t follow the game closely. So an essay by Paul Marion on his paulmarion.com website, illustrates why baseball is so important in our culture and our lives. Organized Ball By Paul…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. After three years of not being on an airplane due to COVID concerns, we decided to take a winter break. I should have chosen my words more carefully. Friends ask me how was my trip to Florida. A…
Read More »Today, I’ll jump from local to world events for a brief comment about the Chinese balloon that was shot down by the US off the coast of South Carolina on February 4, 2023, after transiting much of the United States. I assume it was an intelligence collection platform that vacuumed…
Read More »Living Madly: By Any Other Name By Emilie-Noelle Provost Every year around Valentine’s Day, when advertisements for engagement rings and wedding venues start popping up in newspapers and on billboards, I start thinking about names. When I was 11 years old, a friend and I would sometimes walk through the…
Read More »Boarding School Blues: Ch. 52 By Louise Peloquin Ch. 52: Eve of Destruction The initiation to skiing left its mark. Within twenty-four hours, indigo, violet and maroon splotches popped up all over Blanche’s and her brother’s bodies. Proud of his battle wounds, Antoine wowed Byron and Maggie by showing them…
Read More »Two years ago, I faced some major home maintenance challenges. My roof, boiler and hot water tank all needed replacing. It was not an emergency, but that’s what I wanted to avoid. The contractors I consulted urged me to first contact Mass Save for a home energy audit which was…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. Picasso’s War: How Modern Art Came to America by Hugh Eakins is a brilliant accounting of America’s slowness to embrace modern art, from the post-impressionists on. Even while Europe was enthralled by Matisse and intrigued by Picasso, those and…
Read More »The imagery of this poem by Frank Wagner is grim but it ends on an uplifting note. It also echoes an emerging movement in burial practice: Natural Organic Reduction, also known as human composting. It’s an option in six states and there’s a bill pending in the state legislature to…
Read More »Mark Cote, a regular contributor to this website, recently shared the following essay which he wrote 23 years ago when he served as the Chair of the city of Lowell’s Hunger/Homeless Commission. The essay originally appeared in the Lowell Sun on December 21, 2000, under the title, “Real tragedy of…
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