Dana Gioia

Dana Gioia. National Endowment for the Arts official portait, 2005. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Dana Gioia
Born	December 24, 1950 (1950-12-24) Hawthorne, California, U.S.
Language	English
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Stanford University (B.A.), Harvard University (M.A.), Stanford Business School (M.B.A.)

Michael Dana Gioia (born December 24, 1950) is an American poet, writer, and literary critic.

Life

Overview

Gioia retired early from his career as a corporate executive at General Foods to write full-time. From January 29, 2003, until January 22, 2009, he was chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the U.S. government arts agency, and has worked to revitalize an organization that had suffered bitter controversies about the nature of grants to artists in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In August 2011, Gioia became Judge Widney Professor of Poetry and Public Culture at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California.

He has sought to encourage jazz, which he calls the only uniquely American form of art, to promote reading and performance of Shakespeare and to increase the number of Americans reading literature. Before taking the NEA post, Gioia was a resident of Santa Rosa, California, and before that, of Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.

Gioia is classed as one of the "New Formalists", who write in traditional forms and have declared that a return to rhyme and more fixed meters is the new avant-garde. He is a particular proponent of accentual verse.

Youth and education

Gioia (pronounced "JOY-uh") was born in Hawthorne, California, the son of Michael Gioia and Dorothy Ortez. His father was the son of immigrants from Sicily and his mother was a native Californian of Mexican heritage. His younger brother is jazz historian Ted Gioia. Gioia grew up in Hawthorne, "speaking Italian in a Mexican neighborhood", he said. He attended Junípero Serra High School in Gardena, California.

He earned his B.A. from Stanford University in 1973, an M.A. from Harvard University in 1975, and an M.B.A. from Stanford Business School in 1977. From 1971 to 1973, he was editor of Sequoia Magazine, and then its poetry editor from 1975 to 1977.

Marriage and career

After college, he joined General Foods Corporation and served as vice-president of marketing from 1977 to 1992. He was on the team that invented Jell-O Jigglers. But even while there he was writing and producing several books of poetry.

From 1977-79, he was literary editor of Inquiry Magazine and served as its poetry editor from 1979-83. For the academic years 1986-1989, he was a Visiting Writer at Wesleyan University.

On February 23, 1980, he and Mary Elizabeth Hiecke (born May 26, 1953) were married. They had three sons, Michael Jasper Gioia (who died in infancy); Michael Frederick "Mike" Gioia; and Theodore Jasper "Ted" Gioia. His poem Planting a Sequoia is based on his real experience of losing his newborn son soon after he was born.

In 1992, Gioia resigned from his position at General Foods to write full-time. riting full time

After becoming a full-time writer, Gioia also served as vice-president of the Poetry Society of America from 1992 and as music critic for San Francisco magazine from 1997. He also wrote the libretto of the opera Nosferatu (2001).

Gioia objects to how marginalized poetry has become in America. He believes that university English departments appropriated the field from the public:

The voluntary audience of serious contemporary poetry consists mainly of poets, would-be poets, and a few critics. Additionally, there is a slightly larger involuntary and ephemeral audience consisting of students who read contemporary poetry as assigned course work. In sociological terms, it is surely significant that most members of the poetry subculture are literally paid to read poetry: most established poets and critics now work for large educational institutions. Over the last half-century, literary bohemia had been replaced by an academic bureaucracy. (Citation needed)

NEA chairman

Template:POV Gioia was President George W. Bush's 2nd choice to lead the NEA. The f1st, composer Michael P. Hammond, died only a week after taking office as the NEA's eighth chairman in January 2002. Gioia said, "I found an agency that was demoralized, defensive, and unconfident. It had been under constant assault for about fifteen years and it was suffering from the institutional version of battered child syndrome", said Gioia. "I don't think the NEA has done a very good job of serving America," he declared. By bringing a new visibility to the agency and wooing Congressional Republicans, Gioia gained a sizable increase in his agency's budget. "Dana is a superb politician. He knows how to talk to Congress and to the arts community, and to state and federal agencies and to the complex, gigantic, fire-breathing beast called the White House," said David Gelernter of Yale University.(Citation needed) Bill Kauffman called Gioia "the best poet in government service since President Tyler sent John Howard "Home Sweet Home" Payne to Tunis."

At the NEA, Gioia created new programs such as Shakespeare in American Communities, bringing the Bard to small towns; and NEA Jazz Masters, promoting jazz music. The NEA presents an annual award for jazz which Gioia hopes will be the jazz equivalent of a Pulitzer Prize. "We have a generation of Americans growing up who have never been to the theater, the symphony, opera, dance, who have never heard fine jazz, and who increasingly don't read," said Gioia in justifying his efforts. (Citation needed)

Gioia is not without critics, however. Some in the U.S. Congress, Template:Who believe the NEA should be abolished because it exceeds their view of the Constitutional functions of government. Some in the arts community fault the NEA for abandoning grants to individual artists, which were terminated after controversy over Robert Mapplethorpe, Andres Serrano, and others, to which Gioia responded, "Fellowships in prose (fiction and creative nonfiction) or poetry are available to published creative writers of exceptional talent." Gioia's new NEA programs, for which NEA has sought corporate and foundation support, worry other arts organizations because the NEA is competing with them for funding.

In July 2004 the NEA released "Reading at Risk" a study showing how little time Americans were dedicating to literature. In 2005 Gioia initiated the "Big Read" program, seeking to get Americans to read serious literature, akin to the city-wide reading programs undertaken by several American cities such as Seattle, Cincinnati, and Chicago. The Big Read eventually became the largest literary program in the history of the federal government, reaching nearly 500 cities across all 50 states. Over 25,000 local organizations, including libraries, museums, newspapers, mayor's offices, and private businesses became partners in the program. It also became a vehicle for international cultural exchange with Big Read programs in Russia, Egypt, and Mexico.

In 2007, Gioia was named the 2007 commencement speaker for his alma mater, Stanford University. His selection was a source of controversy between the class of 2007 and the administration. In his commencement address, he lamented the fallout from the dominance of celebrity and fame as societal values: "...we live in a culture that barely acknowledges and rarely celebrates the arts or artists ... When virtually all of a culture's celebrated figures are in sports or entertainment, how few possible role models we offer the young ... There are so many other ways to lead a successful and meaningful life that are not denominated by money or fame. Adult life begins in a child's imagination, and we've relinquished that imagination to the marketplace." Gioia has also written or co-written a number of texts used in college courses, including the anthology (edited with Dan Stone) 100 Great Poets of the English Language (2004). He has authored many essays and reviews.

Writing

Gioia began to attract widespread attention as a poet in the early 1980s, with frequent appearances in The Hudson Review, Poetry, and The New Yorker. In the same period, he published a number of essays and book reviews. Both his poetry and his prose helped to establish him as a leading figure in the New Formalist movement, which emphasized a return to traditional poetic techniques such as rhyme, meter, and verse forms, and to narrative and non-autobiographical subject matter.

Daily Horoscope (1986), his debut collection, was among the most anticipated and widely discussed poetry volumes of its time. Its contents — like those of the Gioia's subsequent collections — range widely in form, length and theme: traditional forms and free verse; lyrics, meditations, and mid-length narratives; deeply personal poems and poems drawn from myth, history, and the other arts. Among its more notable — and widely reprinted — pieces are “California Hills in August”, “In Cheever Country”, and “The Sunday News”.

The Gods of Winter (1991) is in many ways a deeper and darker book than its predecessor. It contains “Planting a Sequoia”, his most direct engagement of the tragic loss of his infant son, as well as two long dramatic monologues, “Counting the Children”, in which an accountant has a disturbing interaction with a grotesque doll collection, and “The Homecoming”, whose narrator explains his motivations for committing murder and the effects that his violent acts have had upon him. Simultaneously published in Britain, it is one of the few American volumes ever chosen as the main selection of the U.K. Poetry Book Society. (Citation needed)

Gioia's 3rd collection, Interrogations at Noon, was published in 2001. (It is surely no coincidence that each book’s title contains a temporal reference, given the importance of time and its passing as a theme in Gioia’s poetry.) Its varied contents include a suite of translations from contemporary Italian poet Valerio Magrelli and 2 excerpts from Gioia’s translation of Seneca’s Hercules Furens, amid many original poems in which contemplative and occasionally wistful notes predominate, as in the concluding stanza of “Summer Storm”: “And memory insists on pining / For places it never went, / As if life would be happier / Just by being different.” (Citation needed)

His poetry has appeared in The Norton Anthology of Poetry, The Oxford Book of American Poetry, and many other anthologies. They have been translated into French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Chinese, and Arabic.

Gioia has also written the libretti for the operas Nosferatu (2001, with music by Alva Henderson) and Tony Caruso's Last Broadcast (2005, with music by Paul Salerni). (Citation needed)

Recognition

Gioia won the Frederick Bock Award for poetry in 1986. His 1991 poetry collection The Gods of Winter won the 1992 Poets' Prize.

Gioia had received 10 honorary doctorates, as of 2011. In 2005, Dana Gioia received the John Ciardi Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry. In 2010, Gioia was announced as the year's recipient of the Laetare Medal from the University of Notre Dame, an honor traditionally given to an American Roman Catholic in recognition of outstanding service to the Church and to society.

On November 17, 2008, Gioia was presented with the Presidential Citizens Medal by President George W. Bush. (Citation needed)

His poetry has been set to music, in styles ranging from classical to jazz and rock, by — among others — Ned Rorem, Dave Brubeck, Paquito D’Rivera, and Alva Henderson; song cycles based on his poems have been composed by Stefania de Kenessey, Lori Laitman, and Paul Salerni.

Publications

Poetry

• Love Songs. West Chester, PA: Auralia Press, 1984.
• Daily Horoscope: Poems. St. Paul, MN: Graywolf Press, 1986.
• The Gods of Winter: Poems. St. Paul, MN: Graywolf Press, 1991.
• Interrogations at Noon: Poems. St. Paul, MN: Graywolf Press, 2001.
• Pity the Beautiful: Poems. St. Paul, MN: Graywolf Press, 2012.

Plays

• Nosferatu: An opera libretto (music by Alva Henderson). St. Paul, MN: Graywolf Press, 2001.
• "Tony Caruso's Final Broadcast: A one-act opera in ten short scenes;" in Italian Americans, 23:1, pp. 5-38.

Non-fiction

• A Remembrance: Michael Jasper Gioia. West Chester, PA: Aralia Press, 1988.
• Can Poetry Matter? Essays on poetry and American culture. St. Paul, MN: Graywolf Press, 1992.
• Barrier of a Common Language: An American looks at contemporary British poetry. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press (Poets on Poetry), 2003.
• Disappearing Ink: Poetry at the end of print culture. St. Paul, MN: Graywolf Press, 2004.

Translation

• Seneca, Juno Plots Her Revenge: Act I of Hercules furens. West Chester, PA: Aralia, 1992.
• Eugenio Montale, Motteti: Poems of Love. St. Paul: Graywolf Press, 1990.
• Seneca, Hercules Furens; in Seneca: The Tragedies, Volume II (edited by David R. Slavitt). Baltimore, MD, & London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.

Edited

• New Italian Poets (edited with Michael Palma). Brownsville, OR: Story Line Press, 1991.
• Literature: An introduction to fiction, poetry, and drama (edited from 6th edition, with X.J. Kennedy). New York: Longman, 1995.
• Certain Solitudes: On the poetry of Donald Justice (edited with William Logan). Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press, 1998.
• The Longman Anthology of Short Fiction: Stories and authors in context (edited with R.S. Gwynn). New York: Longman, 2001.
• The Longman Masters of Short Fiction (edited with R.S. Gwynn). New York: Longman, 2002.
• California Poetry: From the gold rush to the present (California Legacy) (edited with Chryss Yost and Jack Hicks). Santa Clara, CA: Santa Clara University, 2003; Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books, 2004.
• The Misread City: New Literary Los Angeles (editor, with Scott Timberg) (2003)
• Twentieth Century American Poetry (edited with David Mason & Meg Schoerke). Boston: McGraw Hill, 2004.
• 100 Great Poets of the English Language. New York: Pearson Longman, 2004.
• Twentieth Century American Poetics: Poets on the art of poetry (edited with David Mason & Meg Schoerke). Boston: McGraw Hill, 2004.
• The Art of the Short Story (edited with R.S. Gwynn). New York: Pearson Longman, 2006.

Dana Gioia recites poem 'Money'

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

Dana Gioia recites his poem "Prayer"

Dana Gioia recites poem 'Insomnia'

Dana Gioia recites poem 'The Lost Garden'

Dana Gioia recites poem "Beware of Things in Duplicate"

Audio / video

• Dana Gioia (audiobook). Stanford, CA: Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
• 100 Great Poets of the English Language (CD; with Dan Stone). Princeton, NJ: Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic, 2006.
• Writers on writing (CD; with Josephine Reed). New York: Hudson Review, 2010.

Except where noted, discographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• New Formalists
• List of Chicano poets
• List of U.S. poets

References

• American Perspectives. C-SPAN. February 21, 2004. (Presentation of talk Gioia gave at the Agassi Theatre, Harvard University, February 9, 2004).
• Jack W.C. Hagstrom & Bill Morgan. Dana Gioia: A Descriptive Bibliography with Critical Essays (2002)
• Cynthia Haven. "Dana Gioia Goes to Washington". Commonweal. November 21, 2003.
• Cynthia Haven. "Poet Provocateur", Stanford Magazine, July/August 2000.
• April Lindner. Dana Gioia (Boise State University Western Writers Series, No. 143) (2003)
• Belinda Lanks. "Bush Picks Poet for NEA", ARTnews December 2002
• Janet McCann, "Dana Gioia: A Contemporary Metaphysics," Renascence 61.3 (Spring 2009): 193-205.
• John J. Miller. "Up from Mapplethorpe". National Review. March 8, 2004.
• Jim Milliot. "Gioia vows to change America's reading habits." Publishers Weekly. June 27, 2005.
• "Reviving the Bard" (editorial). The New Criterion. December 2003.
• Bruce Weber. "Poet Brokers Truce in Culture Wars." The New York Times. September 7, 2004.
• World Authors 1990-1995. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1999

External links

Poems

• Dana Gioia b. 1950 at the Poetry Foundation
• Dana Gioia at Poetry 180: "Thanks for Remembering Us," "Alley Cat Love Song," "Entrance"
• Dana Gioia profile & 2 poems at the Academy of American Poets
• Dana Gioia at PoemHunter (22 poems).

Prose

• Text of 2007 Stanford Commencement address
• "The Catholic Writer Today" at First Things

Audio / video

• Dana Gioia at YouTube
• Conversation with Dana Gioia and Deborah Borda – October 7, 2009

Books

• Dana Gioia at Amazon.com

About

• Dana Gioia Official website.
• National Endowment for the Arts - President Bush Presents National Medal of Arts, Awards Cultural Leaders
• Poet Dana Goia on the National Endowment for the Arts, Los Angeles Times
• Dana Gioia on the Close Connection between Business and Poetry, UPenn.edu.