Poetry Night: Dana Gioia in conversation with Andy Jones

A reading and conversation with former California Poet Laureate, Dana Gioia about his new book, Studying with Miss Bishop: Memoirs from a Young Writer’s Life, with an opportunity for Q&A. 

Your host will be Dr. Andy Jones, the poet laureate emeritus of Davis, California. Dana and Dr. Andy have been friends for 25 years.

To attend and participate, visit https://ucdavisdss.zoom.us/my/andyojones at 8 PM, or a few minutes before if you wish to chat with the host and the other attendees.

About Dana Gioia

Dana Gioia is an internationally acclaimed poet and writer. Former California Poet laureate and Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Gioia was born in Los Angeles of Italian and Mexican descent. The first person in his family to attend college, Gioia earned a B.A. and M.B.A. from Stanford and an M.A. from Harvard in Comparative Literature. For fifteen years he worked as a businessman before quitting at forty-one to become a full-time writer.

Gioia has published five full-length collections of poetry, most recently 99 Poems: New & Selected (2016), which won the Poets’ Prize as the best new book of the year. His third collection, Interrogations at Noon (2001), was awarded the American Book Award. Gioia is best known as a central figure in the revival of rhyme, meter, and narrative in contemporary poetry. Critic William Oxley has called Gioia “probably the most exquisite poet writing in English today.”

An influential critic, Gioia has published four books of essays. His controversial volume, Can Poetry Matter? (1992), was 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. His essays and memoirs have appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic, Washington Post, New York Times, Hudson Review, and BBC Radio.

In his most recent collection of essays, Studying with Miss Bishop, Dana Gioia tells about six people who helped him become a writer and understand what it meant to dedicate his life to literature.

Gioia has been an important advocate for the arts and arts education. From 2003 to 2009 Gioia served as the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts where he helped create and launch the largest programs in the agency’s history, including Poetry Out Loud, The Big Read, and Shakespeare in American Communities.

Gioia also served as the California State Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2019. During his tenure, he became the first laureate to visit all 58 counties of California. His statewide tour became the subject of a BBC Radio documentary.

In addition to the American Book Award and Poets’ Prize, Gioia has won many awards, including the Laetare Medal from Notre Dame, Presidential Citizen’s Medal, Aiken Taylor Award in Modern Poetry, and Walt Whitman Champion of Literacy prize. He has been awarded ten honorary doctorates.

The Poetry Night Reading Series, taking place on the first and third Thursdays of the month, is generously supported by the people and poets of the Sacramento Valley. Please add your name to the Poetry in Davis mailing list at http://www.poetryindavis.com.

Please join us on Thursday, January 21st, at 8 PM via ZOOM!