Dana Gioia

Who is Dana Gioia?

Michael Dana Gioia is an American poet and writer who also served as the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. Born in Hawthorne, California to working class parents of Italian and Mexican descent, Gioia attended Harvard and Stanford Universities. For fifteen years, he worked for General Foods Corporation while writing at night and on the weekends. His 1991 Atlantic essay, "Can Poetry Matter?" generated international attention. Gioia has published four books of poetry and three volumes of poetry criticism as well as opera libretti, translations, and over two dozen literary anthologies. His third poetry collection, Interrogations at Noon won the 2002 American Book Award.

From January 29, 2003, until January 22, 2009, he was chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, the U.S. government's arts agency. In August 2011, Gioia became Judge Widney Professor of Poetry and Public Culture at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California. He currently divides his time between Los Angeles and Sonoma County, California.