Archive
More than thirty years of First Things articles at your fingertips.
Articles
A Conversation with Maryann Corbett
On October 27 in New York City, First Things will host its fifth annual poetry reading, featuring poet Maryann Corbett. RSVP here to secure a seat. Corbett holds a...
Experimental Design
This tangle of Drosophila, these flieslow-orbiting your wineglass and my peachniggle a question: whether meaning liesonly in multitudes. Is all, not each,what matters? The arcana of creationbloom from the...
Spoonspell
From the dank deeps under dampened compost, to my amazement, there now emerges almost unspoiled a metal spoon— stainless steel, from the ancient stash of...
Pelicans at Nags Head
Bumbling, ungainly, sag-chinned, laughable: on land, the pelicans concede their natures. Hugging the sand, one tries to hide his features, long neck scrunched into shoulders, abashed bill well down....
Les Regrets, Sonnet 38
Lucky: the man who measures out his days among his equals—simple, honest, free, not gripped by cramping fears or jealousies, ruling a farmstead kingdom peaceably. The miseries of grasping...
Prophesying to the Breath
I’m tired of it, this labored breathing. Tired of phlegm and coughing and the fight for air, bent double on the landing of a stair, in wheezing gasps where...
