First Things RSS Feed - Dana Gioia https://www.firstthings.com/author/dana-gioia en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:52:36 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/dana-gioia 60 Christianity and Poetry https://www.firstthings.com/article/2022/08/christianity-and-poetry https://www.firstthings.com/article/2022/08/christianity-and-poetry Mon, 01 Aug 2022 00:00:00 -0400 I

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]]> Psalm to Our Lady Queen of the Angels https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/11/psalm-to-our-lady-queen-of-the-angels https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/11/psalm-to-our-lady-queen-of-the-angels Sun, 01 Nov 2020 00:00:00 -0400 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.

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]]> Clarify Me, Please, God of the Galaxies https://www.firstthings.com/article/2018/05/clarify-me-please-god-of-the-galaxies https://www.firstthings.com/article/2018/05/clarify-me-please-god-of-the-galaxies Tue, 01 May 2018 00:00:00 -0400 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 appeared in prominent journals, championed by Oxford’s new generation of tastemakers. Her first publication, Poems (1953), launched the acclaimed Fantasy Poets pamphlet series, which would soon present the early work of Philip Larkin, Kingsley Amis, Thom Gunn, and Geoffrey Hill. Her first full-length collection, A Way of Looking (1955), won the Somerset Maugham Award and became the Poetry Book Society recommendation. She was the youngest poet featured in the first Penguin Modern Poets volume (1962). Meanwhile Jennings achieved enduring notoriety as the only female member of “The Movement,” the irreverent and contrarian group that dominated mid-century British poetry. By age thirty, Jennings was a celebrated writer.

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]]> Singing Aquinas in L.A. https://www.firstthings.com/article/2017/06/singing-aquinas-in-la https://www.firstthings.com/article/2017/06/singing-aquinas-in-la Thu, 01 Jun 2017 00:00:00 -0400 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. I inevitably arrived late to church. The nuns stared disapprovingly as I slipped in among my more punctual classmates in our assigned pews. This daily dose of shame was good training for later life. It made me immune to peer ­pressure.

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]]> Tinsel, Frankincense, and Fir https://www.firstthings.com/article/2016/12/tinsel-frankincense-and-fir https://www.firstthings.com/article/2016/12/tinsel-frankincense-and-fir Thu, 01 Dec 2016 00:00:00 -0500 Hanging old ornaments on a fresh cut tree,
I take each red glass bulb and tinfoil seraph
And blow away the dust. Anyone else
Would throw them out. They are so scratched and shabby.

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]]> The Catholic Writer Today https://www.firstthings.com/article/2013/12/the-catholic-writer-today https://www.firstthings.com/article/2013/12/the-catholic-writer-today Sun, 01 Dec 2013 00:00:00 -0500 I

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]]> Homage to Søren Kierkegaard (1813 – 1855) https://www.firstthings.com/article/2013/10/homage-to-sren-kierkegaard-1813-1855 https://www.firstthings.com/article/2013/10/homage-to-sren-kierkegaard-1813-1855 Tue, 01 Oct 2013 00:00:00 -0400 “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”

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]]> The Seven Deadly Sins https://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/08/the-seven-deadly-sins https://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/08/the-seven-deadly-sins Sun, 01 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0400 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 this cheesy dive?
The food’s so bad that even Gluttony
can’t finish his meal.

Notice how Avarice
keeps refilling his glass
whenever he thinks we’re not looking,
while Envy eyes your plate.

Hell, we’re not even done, and Anger
is already arguing about the bill.
I’m the only one who
ever leaves a decent tip.

Let them all go, the losers!
It’s a relief to see Sloth’s
fat ass go out the door.
But stick around. I have a story

that not everyone appreciates—
about the special satisfaction
of staying on board as the last
grubby lifeboat pushes away.

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]]> Majority https://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/12/majority https://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/12/majority Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0500 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
in foreign bodies.

Leaping into a pool, all laughter,
or frowning over a keyboard,
but mostly just standing,
taller each time.

How splendid your most
mundane action seemed
in these joyful proxies.
I often held back tears.

Now you are twenty-one.
Finally, it makes sense
that you have moved away
into your own afterlife.

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