John Okrent’s first book, This Costly Season: A Crown of Sonnets, was published by Arrowsmith Press in 2021. Okrent is a family doctor who works at the Sea Mar Community […]
Books & Poetry
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Mad Libs Poetry: Pushing the World Away to See It Anew
Alexander DuToit brings Sam Hamill’s heron into the darkroom
This month I asked Alexander DuToit, a senior at Nauset Regional High School, if he’d “Mad Lib” a poem — that is, take an existing poem and swap out everything […]
BOOK REVIEW
Everyone Is to Blame, But Blame Is Not the Point
Lindsey J. Palmer explores the shifting landscapes of friendship in Reservations for Six
The ritual of birthday dinners among old friends — the lengthy and indulgent courses, the observations of milestones met, missed, and anticipated — provides the structure of Eastham resident Lindsey […]
THAT’S ITALIAN
Connecting the Dots From Sicily to SpaghettiOs
Ian MacAllen savors the role of red sauce in the making of Italian-Americanism
I want to get this out of the way at the get-go: I was raised on SpaghettiOs, and I loved them. Surely you remember Chef Boyardee with his jaunty toque, […]
READING ROOM
When the Big Bad Wolf Walks in the Door
A children’s book about domestic abuse might be best read in a supportive setting
The book was handed to me by my daughter’s friend with a request to read it aloud. We were at the Wellfleet Public Library, and as I started reading, I realized […]
WRITING THROUGH THE PAIN
Cookie Mueller’s Carefree Misadventures, Carefully Told
In a new edition, a collection becomes a memoir of a life lived without hesitation
Cookie Mueller and her friends were cold. They were in Provincetown, it was the winter of 1970, and Mueller, who is best known for acting in John Waters’s films, and […]
POLITICAL TALK
How the Republican Party Went Crazy
David Corn of Mother Jones magazine previews his diagnosis of an ‘American psychosis’
The award-winning journalist, author, and MSNBC contributor David Corn pulls no punches. In a recent column, the Mother Jones Washington bureau chief writes that we are living “in a world […]
BOOK REVIEW
American Racism’s Musical Score
Emily Bingham dismantles her Old Kentucky Home
Federal Hill, a restored antebellum plantation house in Bardstown, Ky. better known as the Old Kentucky Home, opened its doors to statewide fanfare and a throng of visitors on July […]
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A Poem That Loosely Follows Summer’s Brush
In Kimiko Hahn’s Wellfleet sojourn, a jumble of memories, worries, and relationships
Summer unfurls to reveal the Cape Cod most people imagine: sandy, sticky, hedonistic, salty. There’s a looseness to the air. Right now, the lush chestnut tree outside the window is […]
BOOK REVIEW
Where the Seeds of Self-Doubt Are Sown
Matthew Clark Davison explores the mysteries of brotherhood and deficiencies of tolerance
Matthew Clark Davison has a reputation among Bay Area writers as one of those teachers you never forget — insightful, funny, immune to excuses, and with an uncanny talent to […]
POETRY
Finding Freedom Through the Power of the Page
Poet, playwright, memoirist, and lawyer Reginald Dwayne Betts knows text is transformative
Reginald Dwayne Betts was a reader growing up, devouring Sherlock Holmes mysteries and scouring encyclopedias for basketball stats. But he didn’t give much thought to writers. “I thought books were […]
THE BUZZ
Scratching an Itch to Tell Stories
Mosquito slam’s audience keeps coming back to see ‘empathy on the stage’
The audience hummed with anticipation on Tuesday night last week at Provincetown’s WOMR Davis Space. They were waiting for Vanessa Vartabedian, the creator of the Mosquito, to take the stage. […]
PLANTS WITH PROMISE
Peter Del Tredici Looks to the Flora of the Future
‘It’s a myth that we can restore what used to exist,’ says the botanist
TRURO — As the climate changes and ecosystems evolve, plant species are adapting to the conditions of their environments. “There is real information here that we need to pay attention […]
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Mad Libs Poetry: To Spring on Cape Cod
Jessica Smart brings Mary Oliver home with peepers, lilacs, and whales
Mary Oliver’s voice, vision, and words are beloved around the world and uniquely tied to Provincetown, where she lived for many decades. Her poems have introduced countless readers to ponds, […]
BOOK REVIEW
A Place of Quiet Beauty Reveals Its Lively Past
Sharon Dunn combines poetry and history in writing about Bound Brook Island
In the same week that we came to live in a cottage halfway between Lombard and Paradise hollows, on the Wellfleet-Truro line, Christopher and I took a walk on Bound […]
