Citizendia
Your Ad Here

Dana Gioia
Dana Gioia

Michael Dana Gioia (born December 24, 1950) is an American poet and critic who retired early from his career as a corporate executive at General Foods to write full time. Events 563 - The Byzantine church Hagia Sophia in Constantinople is dedicated for the second time after being destroyed by Earthquakes Year 1950 ( MCML) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the A poet is a person who writes Poetry. Etymology From the Ancient greek: ποιέω, poieō: "I make or compose" The word critic comes from the Greek el κριτικός ( el-Latn kritikós) "able to discern" which in turn derives from the word Since January 29, 2003, he has been chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, the United States government's 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. Events 904 - Sergius III comes out of retirement to take over the papacy from the deposed Antipope Christopher. Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA is a United States federally funded and donation assisted program that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence The 1980s was the decade spanning from January 1 1980 to December 31 1989. Year 1990 ( MCMXC) was a Common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1990 Gregorian calendar) Gioia has sought to encourage jazz, which he calls the only uniquely American form of art, promote reading and performance of William Shakespeare,, and increase the number of Americans reading literature. Jazz is an American Musical art form which originated in the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States William Shakespeare ( baptised Before taking the NEA post, Gioia was a resident of Santa Rosa, California, and before that, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. Santa Rosa is the County seat of Sonoma County California, United States

Contents

Early years

Michael Dana Gioia—he does not use his first name and pronounces his surname "JOY-uh" — was born in Hawthorne, California (although Who's Who says Los Angeles), the son of Michael and Dorothy (Ortiz) Gioia. Hawthorne is a city in southwestern Los Angeles County California. Los Angeles (lɑˈsændʒələs los ˈaŋxeles in Spanish) is the largest City in the state of California and the American West He grew up in Hawthorne, "speaking Italian in a Mexican neighborhood," he said. His father was the son of immigrants from Sicily and his mother was a native Californian of Mexican heritage. Sicily ( Italian and Sicilian: Sicilia) is an autonomous region of Italy. California ( is a US state on the West Coast of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. The United Mexican States ( or commonly Mexico (ˈmɛksɪkoʊ () is a federal constitutional Republic in North America. He grew up amid a richness of languages: English, Italian, Spanish, and the Latin of the Catholic church. Catholic is an Adjective derived from the Greek adjective '' / 'katholikos' meaning "whole" or "complete".

Gioia attended Junípero Serra High School in Gardena, California. Junípero Serra High School is a private, Roman Catholic High school in Gardena California. Gardena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. [1] He received 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. Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly known as Stanford University or simply Stanford, is a private Research university located in Year 1973 ( MCMLXXIII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar of the 1973 Gregorian calendar. Year 1975 ( MCMLXXV) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The Master of Business Administration ( MBA) is a Master's degree in Business administration, which attracts people from a wide range of academic disciplines The Stanford Graduate School of Business (also known as Stanford Business School or Stanford GSB) is one of the professional Also 1977 (album by Ash. Year 1977 ( MCMLXXVII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays After college, he joined General Foods Corporation and served as vice-president of marketing from 1977 to 1992. General Foods Corporation was a company whose direct predecessor was established in the USA by Charles William Post ( October 26, 1854 - Also 1977 (album by Ash. Year 1977 ( MCMLXXVII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays Year 1992 ( MCMXCII) was a Leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1992 Gregorian calendar) He was on the team that invented Jell-O Jigglers. Jell-O is a Brand name belonging to USA -based Kraft Foods for a number of Gelatin desserts including fruit gels Puddings and no-bake [2]

In 1992, he quit to write full-time. But even when at General Foods, he was writing, producing several books of poetry. He won the Frederick Bock Award for poetry in 1986, and his 1991 poetry collection The Gods of Winter won the 1992 Poets' Prize. Year 1986 ( MCMLXXXVI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar) The Poets' Prize is awarded annually for the best book of verse published by an American in the previous calendar year Gioia is classed as one of the "New Formalists", who write in traditional forms and have declared that this return to rhyme and more fixed meters is the new avant-garde. New Formalism is a late-twentieth and early twenty-first century movement in American poetry that has promoted a return to metrical and Rhymed verse This article is about the poetic technique For the form of ice see Rime ice. In Poetry, the meter or metre is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse. Avant-garde (avɑ̃gaʁd in French) means "advance guard" or "vanguard

From 1971 to 1973, Gioia was editor of Sequoia Magazine and then its poetry editor from 1975 to 1977. The year 1971 in literature involved some significant events and new books The year 1973 in literature involved some significant events and new books The year 1975 in literature involved some significant events and new books The year 1977 in literature involved some significant events and new books From 1977 to 1979, he was literary editor of Inquiry Magazine and served as its poetry editor from 1979 to 1983. The year 1979 in literature involved some significant events and new books The year 1983 in literature involved some significant events and new books

Marriage and family

He and his wife have two sons: Michael and Theodore "Ted" Jasper Gioia.

Writing full time

Since 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. The Poetry Society of America is a literary organization founded in 1910 by poets including Witter Bynner. Year 1992 ( MCMXCII) was a Leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1992 Gregorian calendar) Year 1997 ( MCMXCVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1997 Gregorian calendar He also wrote the libretto of the opera Nosferatu (2001). A libretto is the text used in an extended Musical work such as an Opera, Operetta, Masque, sacred or secular Oratorio and Opera is an art form in which Singers and Musicians perform a Dramatic work (called an opera which combines a text (called a Libretto Year 2001 ( MMI) was a Common year starting on Monday according to the Gregorian calendar.

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.

Better known as a critic than as a poet, he wrote a book about these issues, Can Poetry Matter? and lectured widely on his thesis, which provoked a spirited debate on the topic.

NEA chairman

Gioia was President George W. Bush's second choice to lead the NEA, the first, composer Michael P. Hammond, died only a week after taking office as the NEA's eighth chairman in January 2002. George Walker Bush ( born July 6 1946 is the forty-third and current President of the United States. Michael P Hammond ( ca 1932 &ndash January 2002 was an American composer who was the eighth chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, appointed by President 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 sizeable 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. David Hillel Gelernter (born 1955 is a professor of Computer science at Yale University.

At the NEA, Gioia created new programs such as Shakespeare in Communities, bringing the Bard to small towns; and NEA Jazz Masters, promoting jazz music. The NEA or National Endowment for the Arts, every year honors up to seven Jazz musicians with Jazz Master Awards Jazz is an American Musical art form which originated in the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States The NEA presents an annual award for jazz which Gioia hopes will be the jazz equivalent of a Pulitzer Prize. The Pulitzer Prize, ˈpʊlɨtsɚ PULL-it-sər is an American award regarded as the highest national honor in Newspaper journalism, "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.

Gioia is not without critics, however. Many Congressmen 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. Robert Mapplethorpe ( November 4, 1946 – March 9, 1989) was an American Photographer, known for his large-scale highly Andres Serrano (born August 15, 1950) is an American photographer who has become most notorious through his photos of corpses as well as 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.

Gioia has also sought to promote reading among Americans. In July 2004, the NEA released a study showing how little time Americans were dedicating to literature. In 2005, he began what he called the "Big Read" program, seeking to get Americans to reading serious literature, akin to the city-wide reading programs undertaken by several American cities such as Seattle, Cincinnati, and Chicago. Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar.

Gioia is keen to do anything that can make the arts more available to the public. "Arts are not a luxury," he says. [3]

In 2007, Gioia was named the 2007 commencement speaker for his alma mater, Stanford University. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly known as Stanford University or simply Stanford, is a private Research university located in His selection was a source of controversy between the class of 2007 and the administration. [4] 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. "[5]

Books

Poetry

Criticism

Translation

Edited

Contributor

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). Year 1991 ( MCMXCI) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar. Year 1998 ( MCMXCVIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar) Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " He is also the author of countless many essays and reviews.

Writings about Dana Gioia and His Work

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Gioia, Dana & Wares, Donna, Being a California Poet, <http://www.danagioia.net/essays/ecalifornia.htm> 
  2. ^ Goodyear, Dana (February 19), “The Moneyed Muse: What can two hundred million dollars do for poetry?”, The New Yorker, <http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/02/19/070219fa_fact_goodyear> 
  3. ^ The Man Who Saved the NEA
  4. ^ Dark horse chosen for Commencement - The Stanford Daily Online
  5. ^ Gioia to graduates: 'Trade easy pleasures for more complex and challenging ones'

References

External links

Year 1999 ( MCMXCIX) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar)
© 2009 citizendia.org; parts available under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License, from http://en.wikipedia.org
 Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic