Dana Gioia

Dana Gioia (Gioia is pronounced JOY-uh) is the Poet Laureate of California. An internationally recognized poet and critic, he is the author of five collections of verse, including Interrogations at Noon (2001), which won the American Book Award, and 99 Poems: New & Selected (2016). His critical collections include Can Poetry Matter? (1992), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Award. He has written three opera libretti and edited twenty literary anthologies. Gioia served as Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts from 2003 to 2009. Gioia was born in Los Angeles in a working-class family of Italian and Mexican heritage. He was the first person in his family to attend college. Gioia is the Judge Widney Professor of Poetry and Public Culture at the University of Southern California. (Photo credit @ Star Black.2015.)