The National Endowment for the Arts is looking for a new leader. Ever since the “culture wars” of the ’80s, the NEA has seen its budget, already one of the smallest in the federal bureaucracy, slashed and its influence diminished.
Now, the Senate is about to hold hearings on Dana Gioia. President Bush’s nominee to head the agency is a former executive for Kraft – General Foods. But while Gioia spent his days focused on Kool-Aid and Jello, he spent his nights writing poetry. He writes for opera. He translates. He has published three collections of his own poems. His essay “Can Poetry Matter?” set off a national debate over whether poetry had become over intellectualized, out of touch with readers.
Now, he says, poetry is back where it belongs, in our midst.Can a poet matter?
Guests:
Dana Gioia, poet, “Interrogations at Noon”;
author, “Can Poetry Matter?: Essays on Poetry and American Culture”
advisory editor, “Poetry Speaks: How Great Poets Read Their Work from Tennyson to Plath”