Today we have Dana Gioia on the show. 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, he received 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. We will be focusing on Gioia’s survey of California Poetry that was published in 2003. Please enjoy our winding and wide-ranging conversation on the history of poetry in California.
In this final episode, we discuss the end of the Civil War, and I recommend some further reading.
In this episode, we begin to discuss the Gold Rush and its predecessors. Support this program
In the second episode in this series, we wrap up our discussion of the Know Nothing party's influence in California.