Category: Op-Eds

Gloucester Daily Times | Monday, Feb. 28, 2022 Entering the third year of plague, we continue to fight boredom – an enemy as threatening as the virus. One comfort is knowing we are in this together. We all sometimes get boredom, covid-caused or otherwise. In “Dream Song 14” the wonderful poet John Berryman had this…

Gloucester Daily Times | Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021 Mark Twain, in his travelogue Innocents Abroad, learns about the Cave of the Seven Sleepers. The cave is at the center of an ancient legend of miraculous journeys, time travel, magic potions, a whole series of incredible events.  Twain closes by saying he knows it is all…

Gloucester Daily Times | Thur., Aug. 6, 2020 It’s a tough job wasting all that extra lockdown time. But it can be done. First Step: boot your computer and guiltlessly, mindlessly enter the click-bait world of the mindless web.  Second Step: call it research. As, exploring the history of the T-shirt cannon. Or geography: did…

Boston Herald | Sunday, July 13, 2008 Winslow Homer’s Gloucester is dynamic, hardworking and beautiful. In “Shipbuilding: Gloucester Harbor” and “Sailing Out of Gloucester,” he captured heritage and beauty at once. “Gloucester Houses” and “Prospect Street,” under the hammer of Edward Hopper’s light, portray a strong, stable Gloucester. In 2008, the city is still dynamic,…

Gloucester Daily Times | Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2017 There are now two hotels in downtown Gloucester: the spanking new Beauport, dating back to 2016, and the venerable Crow’s Nest, dating from 1972. I want to compare the two on a couple of points, and because this is a poetry column I’ll start with the bars.…

Gloucester Daily Times | Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016 Love and language create community. Poetry, exalted language, has been key to that creation in all ages, all cultures. In our own, it’s often a part of dedications, openings, church services, wedding toasts, and importantly, though less often, presidential inaugurations. An appropriate enough civic event, since “Poets…

Boston Herald | Saturday, May 2, 2009 The Man at the Wheel He’s looking toward the harbor, and past The harbor to the ocean, past the ocean, Vision fixed in another dimension That two bits tell you is time.   The schooner’s easterly out of Gloucester, America aft, the waking states, As the seaman leans…