Dana Gioia, Poet Laureate, "What poetry is and why it still matters."

Topic: What poetry is and why it still matters.

Dana Gioia is the former Poet Laureate of California. An internationally recognized poet and critic, he is the author of six collections of verse, including Interrogations at Noon (2001), which won the American Book Award, and 99 Poems: New & Selected (2016), which won the Poets’ Prize for the best new poetry volume of the year. His most recent collection is Meet Me at the Lighthouse (2023).

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. He earned a BA and MBA from Stanford and an MA from Harvard. For fifteen years he worked in business in New York becoming a vice-president of Kraft-General Foods. He wrote at nights and on weekends. In 1992 he quit to become a full-time writer.