Biography

Personal Background
Poet, critic, and best-selling anthologist, Dana Gioia is one of America’s leading contemporary men of letters. Winner of the American Book Award, Gioia is internationally recognized for his role in reviving rhyme, meter, and narrative in contemporary poetry. An influential critic, he has combined populist ideals and high standards to bring poetry to a broader audience.

Gioia (pronounced JOY-A) was born of Italian and Mexican descent in Los Angeles in 1950. The first member of his family to attend college, he received a B.A. from Stanford University. Before returning to Stanford to earn an M.B.A., he completed an M.A. in Comparative Literature at Harvard University where he studied with the poets Robert Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Bishop.

In 1977 he moved to New York to begin a career in business. For fifteen years Gioia worked as a business executive, eventually becoming a Vice President of General Foods. Writing at night and on weekends, he also established a major literary reputation. In 1992 he left business to become a full-time writer.

Gioia's 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. He is also a long time commentator on American culture and literature for BBC Radio.

In 1996 Gioia returned to his native California to live in Sonoma County. In November, 2002 he was nominated by President George W. Bush to serve as the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. Unanimously confirmed by the U. S. Senate, Gioia began serving as NEA Chairman in February, 2003. He currently divides his time between Washington, D.C. and California.

Poetry
Gioia has published three full-length books of poetry. Although widely noted for his use of traditional forms, Gioia also writes in free verse—insisting that a poet should be able to use whatever style the work suggests. Widely anthologized and translated, he has been the subject of several critical books and monographs.

His first collection, Daily Horoscope (1986), was both praised and attacked for its influential revival of rhyme and meter. It was not only widely discussed in literary periodicals but also in publications as diverse as The Village Voice, Newsweek, Forbes, and Connoisseur.

Gioia's second collection of poems, The Gods of Winter (1991), was published simultaneously in both the U.S. and Great Britain. It was chosen by London's Poetry Society Book Club as their main selection, an honor rarely given to American authors. In the U.S. the volume was the co-winner of the Poets’ Prize.

Gioia’s third collection of poems, Interrogations at Noon (2001), won the American Book Award. Reviewing the volume, British critic William Oxley praised Gioia as “probably the most exquisite poet writing today in English.”

Trained in comparative literature, Gioia has been an active translator of poetry from Latin, Italian, German, and Romanian. He has published a translation of the 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.

Criticism
Best known to many as a critic, Gioia has been an active and outspoken literary commentator for over a quarter century. His essay, “Can Poetry Matter?”, which appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in 1991, ignited an international debate on the role of poetry in contemporary intellectual life. The Atlantic received more responses on this essay than on any piece in recent history. Debated and discussed in newspapers and magazines and on radio and television here and abroad, “Can Poetry Matter?” stands as one of the most influential literary essays of the past quarter century.

Gioia's critical collection, Can Poetry Matter?: Essays on Poetry and American Culture (1992), was chosen by Publishers Weekly as one of the "Best Books of 1992." This volume also became a finalist for the 1992 National Book Critics Award in Criticism. A special tenth anniversary edition was published in 2002.

Barrier of a Common Language: An American Looks at Contemporary British Poetry (2003) examines the differences between British and American poetry.

Gioia currently co-edits with X. J. Kennedy four popular anthologies, including Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama, the nation’s best-selling college literature textbook—as well as numerous other literary collections.

Music
Before deciding to be a writer, Gioia had intended to be a composer. Trained in music, he has maintained a lifelong passion for the art in all its forms. For the past six years he has been the classical music critic for San Francisco magazine.

Gioia’s work has been set to music by many composers in genres ranging from classical to rock, including a full-length dance theater piece, Counting the Children. He has also written two children’s pieces for narrator and orchestra with the composer Paul Salerni.

He has written the libretto for Nosferatu, an opera, with composer Alva Henderson, which was published by Graywolf in 2001. Showcased as a work-in-progress in ten concert presentations across the U.S., Nosferatu has received international acclaim as an intensely neo-romantic musical drama.

His poems have been set to music by numerous composers, including Ned Rorem, Stefania de Kenessey, David Conte, Lori Laitman, Sarah Michael, and Jack Hues.

Teaching, Conferences, and Service
Gioia is the founder and co-director of two major literary conferences. In 1995 he helped create the West Chester University summer conference on Form and Narrative, which is now the largest annual all-poetry writing conference in the U.S. In 2001 he began Teaching Poetry, a conference in Santa Rosa, California, dedicated to improving high school teaching of poetry.

Gioia has taught as a visiting writer at Colorado College, Johns Hopkins, Sarah Lawrence, Mercer, and Wesleyan University. He is also Vice-President of the Poetry Society of America and has served on the boards of numerous arts organizations.