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Dana Gioia
An influential critic, Gioia is best known for his 1991 book Can Poetry Matter? about the role of poetry in contemporary culture. His collection of poems, Interrogations at Noon, one of three full-length books of poetry, won the 2002 American Book Award. Gioia is also an influential literary anthologist. His anthology, Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama, co-edited with X.J. Kennedy, is the best-selling college literary textbook in America. His many other anthologies include Twentieth-Century American Poetry and The Longman Anthology of Short Fiction: Stories and Authors in Context. Dana Gioia is a long-time commentator on American culture and literature for BBC Radio. His poems, translations, essays, and reviews have appeared in many magazines including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Washington Post Book World, The New York Times Book Review, Slate and The Hudson Review. Trained in music, Gioia was the classical music critic for San Francisco magazine for six years. His poetry has been set to music by many composers in genres from classical to rock, including a full-length dance theater piece, Counting the Children. He has written two opera libretti, including Nosferatu (2001), with composer Alva Henderson, published by Graywolf Press. Gioia is an active translator of poetry from Latin, Italian, German, and Romanian. He has published a translation of Italian Nobel Prize-winning poet Eugenio Montale's Mottetti (1990) as well as two large anthologies of Italian poetry. His translation of Seneca's The Madness of Hercules (1995) was performed by Verse Theater Manhattan. In 2001, Gioia founded "Teaching Poetry," a conference dedicated to improving high school teaching of poetry. Also, he is the founder and co-director of the West Chester University Poetry Conference, the nation's largest annual all-poetry writing conference. Dana Gioia has taught as a visiting writer at Johns Hopkins University, Sarah Lawrence College, Colorado College, and Wesleyan University. He is the former Vice President of the Poetry Society of America and has served on the boards of numerous arts organizations. Nominated by President George W. Bush in January 2003 and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Dana Gioia began his term as the ninth Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts in February 2003. Before moving to Washington, D.C., Dana Gioia lived in Sonoma County, California. He and his wife Mary have two sons.
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Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Dana Gioia, 53, is an
internationally acclaimed poet, critic, educator, and former business executive.
A native Californian of Italian and Mexican descent, Gioia (pronounced JOY-uh)
was the first member of his family to attend college. He received a B.A. and a
M.B.A. from Stanford University and a M.A. in Comparative Literature from
Harvard University. For fifteen years he supported his writing by working as an
executive for General Foods in New York, eventually becoming Vice President of
Marketing.