Dana Gioia

Gioia served two terms as the ninth Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts and was responsible for “The Big Read,” the largest literary program in the history of the federal government.  Gioia is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning poet who has published three full-length collections of poetry.  His poetry collection, Interrogations at Noon, won the 2002 American Book Award.  Also an influential critic, Gioia published Can Poetry Matter? in 1991.  A finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award, the book is credited with helping to revive the role of poetry in American public culture.

Gioia’s many literary anthologies include Twentieth Century American Poetry, 100 Great Poets of the English Language, The Longman Anthology of Short Fiction, and Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama and Writing.  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.  He has written two opera libretti and is an active translator of poetry from Latin, Italian, and German.

As Chairman of the NEA, Gioia succeeded in garnering enthusiastic bi-partisan support in the U.S. Congress for the mission of the Arts Endowment, as well as in strengthening the national consensus in favor of public funding for the arts and arts education.  Business Week Magazine referred to him as “The Man Who Saved the NEA.”