First Things RSS Feed - Maryann Corbett https://www.firstthings.com/author/maryann-corbett en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:53:03 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/maryann-corbett 60 ​A Conversation with Maryann Corbett https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/10/a-conversation-with-maryann-corbett https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/10/a-conversation-with-maryann-corbett Tue, 01 Oct 2019 06:00:00 -0400 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.

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]]> Experimental Design https://www.firstthings.com/article/2016/06/experimental-design https://www.firstthings.com/article/2016/06/experimental-design Wed, 01 Jun 2016 00:00:00 -0400 This tangle of Drosophila, these flies
low-orbiting your wineglass and my peach
niggle a question: whether meaning lies
only in multitudes. Is all , not each ,
what matters? The arcana of creation
bloom from the totting up of tiny specks
from generation unto generation
of brief lives and uncomplicated sex.
We count them, yea, we count them. Thus, they count.
In aggregate, the little meanings chime
life’s answers; little dabs of data mount
to heaven in their millions at a time.
The new design of darkness to appall:
the data cloud, and not the sparrow’s fall.

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]]> Spoonspell https://www.firstthings.com/article/2015/06/spoonspell https://www.firstthings.com/article/2015/06/spoonspell Mon, 01 Jun 2015 00:00:00 -0400 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 our wedding booty.    Wondering how
it came there, I mull,    and memory mumbles:
The sandbox sat here,    out of the sun,
and the great excavations    of small engineers
ate hours of summer,    ages ago.

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]]> Pelicans at Nags Head https://www.firstthings.com/article/2015/04/pelicans-at-nags-head https://www.firstthings.com/article/2015/04/pelicans-at-nags-head Wed, 01 Apr 2015 00:00:00 -0400 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.

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]]> Les Regrets, Sonnet 38 https://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/05/les-regrets-sonnet-38 https://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/05/les-regrets-sonnet-38 Sun, 15 May 2011 00:00:00 -0400 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 for a place
do not obsess him. His feelings are unbound,
yet his desire, placid and passionless,
stops at the fence that guards his plot of ground.

Nor does he trouble his heart with any grand
affairs, but sets his hope on what is sure,
serving himself as master, court, and king:

Not wasting his substance in a foreign land.
Not risking his life in someone else’s war.
Not wanting more. Not lacking anything.

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]]> Prophesying to the Breath https://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/05/prophesying-to-the-breath https://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/05/prophesying-to-the-breath Thu, 01 May 2008 00:00:00 -0400 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 nothing is inspired.
Tired of the silence next to me in bed
when measured snoring suddenly goes still;
of counting a nervous one, two, three until
it starts itself again. Tired of my dread.
I want it back: the confidence in air—
ruah, pneuma, spiritus —the breath
that stirs the vocal folds of nuns in choir.
The breath that Is. The sound of something there
guiding this gusty round of birth and death.
The rush of driving wind. The tongues of fire.

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