The Past is a Foreign Country

by Carl R. Trueman

Tony Esolen's love of poetry reminds me of my own love of history, and of why both are important. Continue Reading »

7 Dec 2016

Shepherd

by D. S. Martin

On clear cold nights when far stars speckle skies& woodsmoke goes straight up & disappearsa dozen constellations to my eyesare dull blurs when I think back through the yearsto when the angel spoke to us that nightjoined by the brilliant vast angelic choirwhich overcame our senses with such . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Dec 2016

Last Stab at Goodness

by Stephen Kampa

I’ll tell you how to be the perfect man:You do a perfect imitationOf someone who would hesitateTo let the real you through the door.You’ll need to smile and nod, smell decent, planAt least one slideshow-worthy week’s vacation,Lug brats to ballgames and stay late,Skip nightcaps, and never . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Dec 2016

Tinsel, Frankincense, and Fir

by 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 and shabby.My mother had so little joy to shareShe kept it in a box to hide away.But on the darkest winter nights—voilà—She . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Dec 2016

The Snowstorms that Remain

by Robert W. Crawford

I’m waiting like a child on Christmas Eve,waiting for dawn to show me that the snowis finally here. It’s falling, I believe,but I’ll need more of morning light to know.I’m waiting on the dawn to make the snowreveal itself against the row of pines.I need a minute more of light to knowit’s . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Dec 2016

On My Late Grandmother Still Receiving Mail

by J. P. Celia

And still the letters came.Her neatly printed nameWas clear on every one.A few proclaimed she’d wonA one-time cruise or cash,While others (bright and brash)Would ask her, “how are you?,”Not knowing what we knew,That yesteryear she’d died,Despite what science tried.Yet still they came in . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Dec 2016

God Talk

by John Whitworth

Evenings are when I like to talk to God.I wait all day to watch till He goes by.I wonder is it me and am I odd?I see the sky and God is in the sky.My garden is a special place for God.I have my garden friend, a secret one.We are as like as two peas in a podI see the sun and God is in the sunI read a . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Dec 2016

Poetry and Popery

by The Editors

The First Things Podcast, Episode 17. Also featuring: Thanksgiving wishes from the First Things staff. Continue Reading »

21 Nov 2016

The Sentimentality Trap

by Benjamin Myers

A textbook I use for my introductory poetry classes, the classic Western Wind, defines sentimentality as “emotion in excess of its object.” Sentimentality is not simply too much emotion, but an imbalance of it, an over-investment of emotion relative to that in which it is invested. I have never . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Nov 2016

The Gioia Effect

by Mark Bauerlein

If you have attended many poetry readings, you know how often they turn out to be flat and pedestrian affairs. A figure at the podium recites lines from compositions published and unpublished, and otherwise doesn’t have much to say. You hear a bit of biographical context for this or that specimen, . . . . Continue Reading »

19 Oct 2016