It drew people to it like a fire,
The needle floating up and down its dial,
Fishing for the news. It was a horror house,
A band-stand, Europe in flames,
A dummy and his master.
Among
The cloudy mirrors and calendars,
The radio knobs are toys now,
The beasts have been dragged out;
No tankers hug the coast at night,
Afraid of German submarines; the 1940s
Became the 50s.
The radio crackled
Like a forest once, or glittered
Like a pier in the brain’s darkness,
Walked by Miss Americas carrying
Flowers out with the tide.
—Lawrence Dugan
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
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