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Christianity and Poetry

Dana Gioia

I When I became a man, I put away childish things. —St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 13 Most Christians misunderstand the relationship of poetry to their faith. They consider it...

Psalm to Our Lady Queen of the Angels

Dana Gioia

Let us sing to our city a new song,A song that remembers its name and its founders—Los Pobladores, the forgotten forty-four,Who built their pueblo beside a small river. rn...

Clarify Me, Please, God of the Galaxies

Dana Gioia

The English poet Elizabeth Jennings had the peculiar fate of being in the right place at the right time in the wrong way. Her career began splendidly. Her verse...

Singing Aquinas in L.A.

Dana Gioia

When I was a child in parochial school, we began each morning with ­daily Mass. My mother worked nights, and no one in my family was an early riser....

Tinsel, Frankincense, and Fir

Dana Gioia

Hanging old ornaments on a fresh cut tree,I take each red glass bulb and tinfoil seraphAnd blow away the dust. Anyone elseWould throw them out. They are so scratched...

Homage to Søren Kierkegaard (1813 – 1855)

Dana Gioia

“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” I was already an old man when I was born. Small with a curved back, he dragged his leg when...

The Seven Deadly Sins

Dana Gioia

Forget about the other six, says Pride. They’re only using you. Admittedly, Lust is a looker, but you can do better. And why do they keep bringing us to...

Majority

Dana Gioia

Now you’d be three, I said to myself, seeing a child born the same summer as you. Now you’d be six, or seven, or ten. I watched you grow...