Who is Dana Gioia

Michael Dana Gioia (; born December 24, 1950) is an American poet, literary critic, literary translator, and essayist.

Since the early 1980s, Gioia has been considered part of the literary movements within American poetry known as New Formalism, which advocates the continued writing of poetry in rhyme and meter, and New Narrative, which advocates the telling of non-autobiographical stories. Gioia has also argued in favor of a return to the past tradition of poetry translators replicating the rhythm and verse structure of the original poem.

Gioia helped renew the popularity of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and the rediscovery of John Allan Wyeth. He also co-founded the annual West Chester University Poetry Conference, which has run annually since 1995.

At the reque...
Read Full Biography of Dana Gioia


Dana Gioia Poems

  • Planting A Sequoia
    All afternoon my brothers and I have worked in the orchard,
    Digging this hole, laying you into it, carefully packing the soil.
    Rain blackened the horizon, but cold winds kept it over the Pacific,
    And the sky above us stayed the dull gray ...
  • Emigre In Autumn
    Walking down the garden path
    From the house you do not own,
    Once again you think of how
    Cool the autumns were at home. ...
  • Rough Country
    Give me a landscape made of obstacles,
    of steep hills and jutting glacial rock,
    where the low-running streams are quick to flood
    the grassy fields and bottomlands. ...
  • Insomnia
    Now you hear what the house has to say.
    Pipes clanking, water running in the dark,
    the mortgaged walls shifting in discomfort,
    and voices mounting in an endless drone ...
  • Pentecost
    After the death of our son

    Neither the sorrows of afternoon, waiting in the silent house,
    Nor the night no sleep relieves, when memory ...
Read All Poems


Top 10 most used topics by Dana Gioia

Light 9 Water 6 Summer 6 Green 5 Small 5 Wind 5 Wall 4 Night 4 House 4 I Love You 4


Dana Gioia Quotes

Read All Quotes


Comments about Dana Gioia

Hrk299: "where will it end? this grim cycle of workshops churning out poems for little magazines?" --dana gioia, 1983
Cornishnye: “the unkillable poor”: dana gioia and alexander voloshin at the crossroads
Dappledthings1: friday links with tamara nicholl-smith, trinity forum & makoto fujimura and dana gioia, terence sweeney, ben myers reviews j.c. scharl, jessica hooton wilson in church life journal
Artsjournalnews: scott timberg and what happened to culture:
Gallaghers: so right. but last week i stepped on a sea urchin (without the apology due it). then on the surfboard moping down at my black whiskered toes, a green sea turtle swam by a foot beneath me, like waikiki’s hotelscape had never happened. [dana gioia’s travel]
Read All Comments


Write your comment about Dana Gioia


Poem of the day

Edgar Albert Guest Poem
The Killing Place
 by Edgar Albert Guest

We're hiking along at a two-forty pace
We 're making life seem like a man-killing race,
With our nerves all on edge and our jaws firmly set
We go rushing along; with our brows lined with sweat
And our cheeks pale and drawn every minute we dash,
And the goal that we 're after is merely more cash.

We 're out for the money, the greenbacks and gold,
...

Read complete poem

Popular Poets