The 2024 street sweeping season will resume on Monday, April 1, and continue through December 31. Check signs in your neighborhood for sweeping days. Visit somervillema.gov/sweeping for a full schedule and to sign up for complimentary street sweeping reminders by text, email, or phone. For more information on street sweeping procedures, visit park-somerville.com.

— Photos by Bobbie Toner

The annual Ras na hEireann 5K road race, the most genuine Irish race this side of the Atlantic, took place in Somerville last Sunday, March 24. This race was born in Ireland and named in honor of its famous sister race, the Ras na hEireann International Cross Country held in Termonfechin, County Louth, Republic of Ireland. The Ras na hEireann U.S.A. 5Km was open to all, from beginners to international stars, with many of them in very creative outfits.

If there’s one universal certainty among most – if not all – people, we surely enjoy the transition from the cold, gloomy atmosphere of winter to the explosion of life and natural beauty as the months of spring unfold.

Hallmarks of this special time include the religious holidays that many of us celebrate, such as Easter, for those of the Christian faith, and the rites of Passover practiced by those of the Jewish faith. Likewise, the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr begins later this month.

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My regular breakfast consists of yogurt, granola, and fresh berries. I wanted to switch things up over the weekend and splurge a bit. So, this is a mascarpone stuffed French toast, topped with a bananas foster sauce. This was so rich and decadent it truly hit the spot. Serves 4.

The Center for Teen Empowerment youths on the TD Garden jumbotron.

A group of Somerville youths had a memorable experience on Wednesday, March 20, attending the exciting Boston Celtics game at TD Garden, where the Celtics held off the Milwaukee Bucks 122-119.

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Reviewed by Off the Shelf Correspondent Thomas DeFreitas

The late American poet Donald Justice once offered his opinion that American poets fall into one of two “camps”: the Walt Whitman camp and the Emily Dickinson camp. Whitman-poets are marked by their rambunctious, capacious inclusivity, their embracing acceptance of everything from stamen to stevedore, from wisteria to winebibber. Dickinson-poets are marked by cadence and deliberation, by a discriminating selectivity, by the understated emphasis on one or two painstakingly chosen things. (Justice himself professed a preference for Dickinson’s “closed room”).

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Steve Honig has published six collections of poetry as well as a book of short stories and a spy novel.  His most recent work, entitled Parallel Universes, was released in March. This collection contains poetry of greater abstraction than his prior works, attempting to capture the thesis of an art exhibition at the Paris Museum of Modern Art in August, 2023 which proposed that current artistic endeavors were so varied from prior art as to require reclassification as from a parallel world. The below poem makes no reference to its subject or prompt, and its title is omitted here (in the book, titles appear on following pages so that the reader is challenged to think of the initial subject or impetus). The intent is to reflect in each poem a secondary memory, an emotional detritus existing within an afferent plane of thought. Steve is a member of the Board of the New England Poetry Club.

Mayor Ballantyne, the Somerville Commission for Women, Somernova, and the city’s Department of Racial and Social Justice are announcing the city’s third annual Women’s History Month celebration. Members from the Somerville community are invited to join the celebration and share in honoring the many contributions of women throughout our history.

The Somerville Democratic City Committee will meet virtually on Wednesday, April 10 at 7:30 p.m. to hold its reorganization, where they will elect Somerville Democratic City Committee officers for two year terms. Please visit this link to sign up and for more information: https://www.somdems.org/april_sdcc_reorganization_meeting