Far more than Once Upon a Time, A lonely would-be single-mom Wished for a child, and one soon came, Not in the usual way—but sprung From golden seed of barley corn Sold by a fairy. And when it bloomed, A little unborn maiden stood Among the flower’s velvet

As a Boy Scout, Dad decoded The dit-dit-dahs of Morse, the swashed flags Of semaphore, bugled “Taps.” At war’s end, trumpeted jazz, Sported a dashing Errol Flynn mustache, Drove a Mercury coupe, led a brass swing band. Growing gray, he bought a Mustang, Cap

Brave luminaries, Jan Hus and William Tyndale, Were made to glow like scrolling leaves on Kindle, Snuffed out like candles and condemned to night For bringing Christ’s free gift of grace to light.

In Year One, the month of Vintage, time began. Fog hovered above the earth, like an emanation Of spirits underground. The scents of rose water Sprinkled on sawdust, bird lime, blood, and fungus Commingled in the air, like a chimera Exhaled from broken mouths.

A neighbor passing by the widow's house Stopped dead on seeing him in the garage Behind the wheel of his new Lincoln, slouched Half toward the dashboard, as if tuning in A Cardinals game. The shape was no mirage, He said, but Clarence, or a living twin, Thou

A bloody handprint on a windowpane Beneath which, blood-scrawled letters spell Beware. Across the street, a pumpkin with straw hair Gathers his seedy thoughts like Harvest grain. Then, like an evening shadow, Halloween Spreads darkness down the block, and bl

As her dance dissolves and smiling Salome Sashays across the floor in smoky veils To join her scheming mother, Herod sighs, Seeing how foolishly he’s just behaved— Losing his head to such a vapid girl, Whose liquid rippling of breasts and thighs Writhing in t

In Kenya, vervet monkeys take the ground Until a sentry gives a chattering bark, Which in the simple vervet lexicon Means snake, and connotes evil, death, and dark. Or else the sentry makes a guttural sound That translates in our own more complex tongue To ha

Paul Lake. Paul is also a very fine poet in his own right, and we’re pleased to say that his latest collection, The Republic of Virtue, has won this year’s Richard Wilbur Award. The title poem appeared in our pages a while back (March 2009). The book will be p

Paul Lake  

Paul Lake is the poetry editor of First Things. His latest book is the satirical novel Cry Wolf: A Political Fable.

Paul Lakeland of Fairfield intoned that it was “a black day in the history of the Church.” What triggered this outrage? In early June the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican bureaucracy responsible for weighing in on questions of faith and

Paul Lake, Robert Pack, and Gail White provide us with contemplative pauses in this jam-packed March issue. The essays start off with "The Dialectic and the Double Helix." Thomas Albert Howard’s historically informed analysis of the public sphere’s relations

Paul Lake. Oh, and of course you’ll want to read the book reviews. First Things’ editor, Joseph Bottum, is unimpressed by Burton Raffel’s new translation of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. There is, he argues, something wrong with the very idea of a

Paul Lake. In fuller reviews, Gary Anderson examines Joseph A. Fitzmyer’s The One Who Is to Come, about “the problem of Jewish messianic expectations in the generations just prior to the birth of Jesus.” Richard Garnett adds a careful reading of Nicholas

Paul Lake, and Rose Kelleher. And then, as always, there’s First Things most popular feature: Richard John Neuhaus’ column, “The Public Square.” This month, Fr. Neuhaus begins with “The Possibilities and Perils of Being a Really Smart Bishop,” an essay on

Paul Lake. We've got a sketch of the French philosopher Rémi Brague by Thomas Hibbs and brief reviews from the physicist Stephen Barr and the pro-life activist Wesley J. Smith. And we have, as always, the magazine's most popular feature, Richard John Ne

Paul Lake has been shouldering the work. Poetry is an important part of the work the magazine does, and it's worth subscribing just for gems like Mike Juster's "Rejection Note for Paradise Regained" and Oliver Murray's flower-laden "Good Friday&