Poet Margaret Young uses costumes, food, old pop songs, as well as nature, and just about everything else on this world stage for material for her writing. Nothing is too insignificant or marginal: she gives a voice to it all. As her mentor the poet Gary Snyder taught her, poets should give voice to that cannot be voiced; this includes everything in the human world.

Poet Jake Montgomery knows the power of the mind, the power of perception. He explores these concepts by focusing on and using wordplay with inanimate objects like rocks and minerals, fool’s gold, so to speak. Montgomery is a young, emerging poet and we here at the LYRICAL hope to hear more from him in the years to come.

At about 7:40 p.m., a Somerville Police Officer attempted to place a subject under arrest for an outstanding unarmed robbery warrant out of Malden District Court.  The suspect, who is tentatively identified as Demetrius Tragiou, age 30, got into a physical struggle with the officer and fled into the residence at 56 Broadway, where he barricaded himself inside.  The suspect, who was known to the officer to have a violent history, told officers that he had hostages inside and he would harm them if they tried to enter.  Police officers then secured the residence and called in a SWAT Team and negotiators from the Northeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council (NEMLEC).

Residents now can access online data concerning public works services
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Breaking new ground in customer service, the City has published the monthly performance statistics of its Department of Public Works. Available online through the City website, the first set of data posts the DPW performance numbers for the month of July.

The public now can see how the DPW service levels fared for 46 different services. Areas of coverage include school building repair, roadway services, trash removal and water/sewer repairs. The expected amount of time to complete the service request is listed next to each service type and each case of late service delivery is captured in the report. The City, through its SomerStat office and 311 Constituent Services Department, collects and evaluates this information on a constant basis in order to identify service inefficiencies and develop strategies to improve those service levels.

Somerville schedules multiple meetings to educate public about October zero-sort launch.
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During the month of September, City officials will be hosting meetings all over Somerville to educate the public about the October switch to zero-sort recycling.

Who is #1? When it comes to top-level Somerville spook rock, there can be only one answer: Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling.

Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling springs new video on an unsuspecting world

By Jim Clark

Just when you thought it was safe to surf YouTube again, an aggressive-subversive phenomenon jumps up to bite you on the backside once more. This time it just might tickle.

Somerville’s own Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling, a quirky, ultra-cool, and decidedly enigmatic artistic force has released yet another music video offering, First We Take Manhattan.

On The Silly Side by Jimmy Del Ponte

This article first ran in the September 2, 2009 edition of The Somerville News.

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville News belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.)

It’s that time of year again. Reading and writing and arithmetic. This time of year used to make me sick. When I heard those commercials like “before you go back to school, go to Zayres,” my stomach cringed. It also seemed that we always discovered something really cool right at the end of the summer that was now cut short by school. One year it was extending the forks on our bikes, another year it was hanging out with a new group of girls on the next street. Sometimes it was playing football or Frisbee, but school always goofed it up. I spoke to a few of my friends who, like me, still get a nervous ache in their stomach whenever the beginning of the school year starts.

By Jim Clark

Somerville police stopped a vehicle last week due to alleged suspicious activity. The driver reportedly identified himself as Hector Jesus Guzman-Oyola, but upon further investigation it was learned that his name is actually Luis Alejandro Cuello.

By William C. Shelton

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville News belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.)

I watch politicians and pundits pour over each new economic indicator like seers examining the entrails of sacrificial goats, and I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

I need only examine federal fiscal policy to offer this forecast: U.S. economic growth and employment will not significantly improve, and may well worsen, for years to come.

Centro Presente’s screening of The Invisibles brought interested parties from all sides together to examine some of the myths and realities of immigration to the United States by Central and South Americans. - Photo by Carrie Stanziola

By Carrie Stanziola

On August 25, Somerville residents were invited to a screening of The Invisibles, sponsored by Centro Presente as part of their “Somos-We Are” campaign. Somos is the brainchild of the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities (NALACC), a two year-old initiative designed to fight xenophobic and anti-immigrant attitudes and laws which dehumanize migrant communities. Among Somos’ campaigns is to petition WBUR to stop using the word “illegal” to describe undocumented immigrants. As Somos argues, actions, not people are illegal. The word “illegal” adds nothing to the immigration debate and does not tell the stories of immigrants.