Menu
At the blog, we’ve had a great response to the series of updates on writers linked to Lowell and the region. My co-blogger Paul Marion contacted the writers and did the overviews of their activity in the past year as well as hints about what’s forthcoming in 2019. I wanted…
Read More »We’ve been posting this brief Christmas essay long enough that it has become a tradition on the blog, along with Henri Marchand’s essay about making fruitcake for the holidays. The piles and bags of oranges are prominent in the produce sections of local supermarkets this month. If you have your…
Read More »I happened to be at the Kerouac Commemorative public artwork in Kerouac Park at Bridge and French streets yesterday, Jack’s Death Day, where I stopped while guiding a group of 17 arts administration master’s program students from Boston University around Lowell’s historic and cultural district. The flawless blue sky played…
Read More »One of my uncles passed away yesterday at 97 years old. In my family he was always “Uncle Tommy,” Thomas C. Brady of Lowell, raised along the Concord River and longtime resident of Centralville. He was in the US Navy in WWII, serving in the Atlantic and Pacific on ships…
Read More »Bootstrap Press of Lowell is publishing my next book, “Union River,” a collection of poems and sketches spanning 40 years of writing. The book will be released this spring. Thanks to Ryan Gallagher for the cover design. The paperback book will be 5 x 8 in size with cover flaps…
Read More »Web photo courtesy of ABC News Over the weekend, we saw two competing visions of America in the form of citizens standing (and marching) for what they believe is best for the country, all of it in public view on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. I wrote this poem…
Read More »I wrote this poem in late 2008 after Barack Obama was elected president but before his inauguration. The title is from his campaign chant that he got from a woman who supported him: “Fired up! Ready to Go!” The poem is not so much about him as the sense of…
Read More »This post was first heard as a radio essay on the Sunrise program of WUML, 92.5 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 have shared this essay with rh.com readers…
Read More »Here’s a late season portfolio from the backyard garden that gave us a productive flowery summer. Top to bottom: hibiscus, stonecrop, zinnia, black-eyed susan or coneflower/rudbeckia.—PM
Read More »Now that we are past Labor Day, I can say that I had my first summer “off” since I was 17 years old. That’s a long time in human years. When I retired from my management job at UMass Lowell last March, the thing I looked forward to more than…
Read More »