Musings: A Column on Local Culture

In Advent

Swamspcott poet M.W. MacKay speaks to the season.

Living as we do at the extreme edge of the Eastern Standard Time Zone is to experience wide swings of daylight; in July barbecues can last until after 8 pm, and now, in December, at 4 pm, we are ready to put on our pajamas for the evening, even if we are still at work. And so, we compensate, with electric lights to illuminate the darkness. In Advent, a poem from M.W. MacKay’s collection, Hope runs through it, acknowledges this collective longing for more light, and wonders about how we try to make up for the lack of illumination. She writes: I hunger for light. Not the junk-food bright glare that blazes from malls and screams back the dark with extended Holiday hours. She goes on to ask whether all this over-brightness is somehow missing …

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Hope Runs Through It

Local author uses poetry to navigate troubled times.

Most parents dealing with children with special needs are so overwhelmed that they have little energy or inclination to record the experience, which also involves, to an extent, reliving it. Not so for Swampscott’s M.W. MacKay. An editor for Lippincott for over 20 years who holds a Masters in English Literature from Temple University, MacKay turned to poetry to keep her balance. The result is a book of poems, Hope runs through it. Hope runs through it is a narrative collection and tells the story of MacKay’s raising a creative, talented, loving son burdened with OCD, anxiety, and other issues. The poems resonate, however, with any parent whose child does not fit into our increasingly narrow definition of what is “normal.” Dispersed within …

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