I rarely pray to Christ. His sacrifice was so perfect, it’s far beyond my ken. I’m one of those who have denied Him thrice but take His bread and wine, then say amen. I pray three ways, first to the Holy Ghost in charge of poets who would serve the Lord, then to St. Michael, head of . . . . Continue Reading »
They trade these old books with scarce a flip, Some autographed, some lovingly signed. Most have been isolated. You know when a book Has been truly used; there’s smell, scruff of attics, Garages, closets, some abandoned under leaky Back yard roofs. You guess a humane history by the skin. Trust . . . . Continue Reading »
Dana Gioia is one of those poets known more for his criticism and service than his own poetry. His essay “Can Poetry Matter?,” published in the Atlantic in 1991, turned more than a few heads for arguing that poetry had wrongly become a coterie art, written for and read by . . . . Continue Reading »
We stream on color: blue, aquamarine, dove grey. To look straight down gives vertigo, but farther out the surface seems serene, both concentration and reflective flow. Horizons offer us expanse”confine us, also. Every wavelet, though unique, resembles all. The latitudes decline; there’s almost . . . . Continue Reading »
Outside Taos, New Mexico The topknot turned. Light struck the needled floor. The darts of sunlight found you where you lay, a target of entrancement, breathing pitch. I think of all you saw that day, but most of all I think about your face, a zone of passing weather, reading change, and being it, . . . . Continue Reading »
“People sink,” wrote Mr. Bishop; “they have no stamina left, they say ‘It is the will of God’ and die.” ” The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845“1852 , by Cecil Woodham-Smith A work such as this was never from God: poor people evicted to wander the road, or to the dark poorhouse where man . . . . Continue Reading »
The parish doorbell rings. When I descend the stair nobody is there, only a bag that sings mournfully by the door, holding some baby shoes and little Polo crews tagged at the Target store. —Timothy . . . . Continue Reading »
This wrestler isn’t ready yet for college, instead he’s shaved his head for the Marines. It isn’t that he has no taste for knowledge but hungers to divine what freedom means. A grandfather was crippled in Korea, shelled in an LSI, the Inchon landing. He’s had enough of poets’ . . . . Continue Reading »
Her parents tired of locking her up before she tired of running away. Love mocks the locksmith, and love drove her on till the convent walls closed around her strong as a castle, and poverty made her as safe as wealth makes a queen. Francis the merchant’s son should have died in the streets of . . . . Continue Reading »
Readers charged that Kathleen Graber's poetry was “slovenly” and “shapeless.” As the poetry editor of First Things, I thought I’d step in and open a wider discussion of poetry, particularly as it pertains to First Things. Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
