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This poem, from Tom Sexton’s recent book Bridge Street at Dusk (Loom Press, 2012), connects to the “Moody Gardens” post below.—PM . Manny He was a minor god of the underworld whose euphonious name brought no reply if mentioned during the day, a lounge singer, a god of sirens and…
Read More »Here’s a great story from Lowell’s past from Mehmed Ali and Beth Brassel: Moody Gardens By Mehmed Ali and Beth Brassel Between 1950 and 1970, Lowell, Mass., saw its status as an industrial dynamo erode. The textile industry shrank to almost nothing and many residents quit on the city, moving…
Read More »These early days of January 2014 are days of mayoral inaugurations. Yesterday – after winning a squeaker over the former controversial mayor – it was Dan Rivera in Lawrence and there’s the upcoming swearing-in of Marty Walsh – the first new mayor of Boston in twenty years. Monday will see a new…
Read More »I just finished reading Frederik Logevall’s Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam which won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2012. A professor of history at Cornell, Logevall uses recently released diplomatic archives from several countries to paint a comprehensive portrait of…
Read More »With snow flying outside, at 5.45 a.m. today all the smoke alarms in our house began beeping in a way that seemed extra loud. My wife, son, and I threw on some clothes and rushed into the hallway upstairs to check for smoke. Nothing. My wife sped over to the…
Read More »Chinese Pie or Pâté chinois is a French-Canadian version of shepherd’s pie that at one time was so popular that it would appear on school lunch menus in French Catholic parishes and even some public schools in Greater Lowell. The origin is not certain and may be related to Canadian…
Read More »Peter Aucella, Assistant Superintendent at Lowell National Historical Park recently received the Department of the Interior’s Superior Service Award for his 24 years of vision, planning, and efforts associated with the Lowell Summer Music Series and the development of Boarding House Park. Each year, the series draws some 30,000 people…
Read More »Thanks to journalist John Collins and the Sun newspaper for reporting on artist Vassilios “Bill” Giavis’s gift of a print of one of his classic paintings to the Town of Dracut. The original painting was based on a poem of mine. Read the story here. A Hundred Nights of Winter…
Read More »This essay was first heard on the former “Sunrise” radio program of WUML, 91.5 FM, at UMass Lowell. Executive producer Chris Dunlap assembled writers in the area for the daily essay feature, a popular component of the morning public affairs show. I shared this essay with readers of this blog for…
Read More »On this snowy night, from Alaska comes a poem with a snowy owl, courtesy of our desk in the West manned by Tom Sexton. Here’s a Lowell memory for our readers. For those who don’t know, Tom Sexton is a distinguished alumnus of Lowell High School and former Poet Laureate…
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