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** Daily Newsletter: October 9, 2025
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** In today’s newsletter:
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SAM BUNTZ: Poetry vs. AI ([link removed])
CARL R. TRUEMAN: Lessons from Luther and Newman ([link removed])
Welcome to the new and improved Daily Newsletter from First Things. Our content isn’t going to change drastically—we’ll still bring you the new articles each day, straight to your inbox.
Now, we'll also connect new articles to the larger conversations First Things has been leading for thirty-five years.
And if you don’t want to read all that, the new articles are listed at the top.
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** Poetry vs. AI ([link removed])
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** Sam Buntz
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How can one be a poetry appreciator in the age of slop? Noah Kumin tackles this question in his debut novel Stop All the Clocks, reviewed today by Sam Buntz. The book centers on a woman investigating the alleged suicide of her partner, a rationalist tech billionaire, who could not understand her love of poetry. Buntz writes, “It is impossible not to read Stop All the Clocks as an indictment of the techie mindset, or as an elegy for the disappearance of authentic poetry.”
For further reading: Sam Buntz’s last review in these pages, “Navigating the Battlefield of Modern Romance ([link removed]) ,” weighed the consequences of the #MeToo movement as presented by Tony Tulathimutte’s debut story collection Rejection. Buntz calls the book “an act of dissection,” delving with “both empathy and ridicule” into the sorry state of dating and identity in an age that has rejected transcendence. For a direct confrontation between ChatGPT and poetry, read Nikolas Prassas’s excellent “Large Language Poetry ([link removed]) .”
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** Lessons from Luther and Newman ([link removed])
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** Carl R. Trueman
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Martin Luther and John Henry Newman may not seem like likely allies in any discussion of doctrine. But on the importance of doctrine itself, they are in surprising agreement, Carl Trueman writes today. “This has practical implications for those Protestants and Catholics who share this conviction: Christian doctrine stands prior to, and is formative of, all Christian practice,” he argues.
For further reading: Trueman’s August column argues that “Christianity is Nothing Without Dogma ([link removed]) .” For a deeper dive into dogmatic theology, read “Renewing Dogmatic Theology ([link removed]) ” (2012) by Bruce D. Marshall, about the thought of theologian Matthias Joseph Scheeben.
Upcoming Events
* November 2, 2025: A Night of Poetry with Ben Myers | New York, NY. Register here ([link removed]) . ([link removed])
* November 3, 2025: The 38th Annual Erasmus Lecture: In Praise of Translation | New York, NY. Register here. ([link removed])
* November 11, 2025: Lecture at the University of Dallas | Irving, TX. Details coming soon.
* January 9, 2026: Second Annual Neuhaus Lecture at the New College of Florida | Sarasota, FL. Details coming soon.
Until next time.
Virginia Aabram's signature
** VIRGINIA AABRAM
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Newsletter Editor
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