Dana Gioia, American poet and critic
Michael Dana Gioia (; born December 24, 1950) is an American poet, literary critic, literary translator, and essayist.
Since the early 1980s, Gioia has been considered part of the literary movements within American poetry known as New Formalism, which advocates the continued writing of poetry in rhyme and meter, and New Narrative, which advocates the telling of non-autobiographical stories. Gioia has also argued in favor of a return to the past tradition of poetry translators replicating the rhythm and verse structure of the original poem.
Gioia helped renew the popularity of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and the rediscovery of John Allan Wyeth. He also co-founded the annual West Chester University Poetry Conference, which has run annually since 1995.
At the request of U.S. President George W. Bush, Gioia served between 2003 and 2009 as the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). In November 2006, Business Week magazine profiled Gioia as "The Man Who Saved the NEA". Five years after Gioia left office, The Washington Post referred to him as one of "two of the NEA's strongest leaders".Gioia is the Judge Widney Professor of Poetry and Public Culture at the University of Southern California and a Senior Fellow at the Trinity Forum. In December 2015, he became the California State Poet Laureate.Gioia has published five books of poetry and three volumes of literary criticism as well as opera libretti, song cycles, translations, and over two dozen literary anthologies. Gioia's poetry has been anthologized in The Norton Anthology of Poetry, The Oxford Book of American Poetry, and several other anthologies. His poetry has been translated into French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Chinese, and Arabic. Gioia published translations of poets such as Eugenio Montale and Seneca the Younger.