Dana Gioia

Dana Gioia is an American poet, critic, and arts advocate of Italian and Mexican descent, best known for his poetry collections like *Interrogations at Noon* (2001, American Book Award winner) and *99 Poems: New & Selected* (2016), as well as his influential essay 'Can Poetry Matter?'. The first in his family to attend college, he earned degrees from Stanford (BA, MBA) and Harvard (MA in comparative literature), worked for fifteen years as a vice president at General Foods, then became a full-time writer in 1992. He served as Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (2003-2009), creating major programs like Poetry Out Loud, and as California State Poet Laureate (2015-2019).