Politic poet at the NEA

Sonoma County poet and literary critic Dana Gioia, new chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, was supposed to be sworn in Feb. 12 following a particularly appropriate special event: a White House poetry symposium titled “Poetry and the American Voice.”

The event was abruptly canceled when word got out that poets were organizing to express their antiwar sentiments at the symposium. Instead, Gioia was the only poet present when he was sworn in as the ninth chairman of the federal arts agency at the White House in a private Feb. 13 ceremony

In his first interviews since taking over the NEA job, Gioia, 52, was already taking the delicate politics of his new role to heart. He determinedly sidestepped questions about the poetry controversy.

For Gioia (JOY-ah), being a poet and a careful politician represents no contradiction. “The worst thing I could do is come to Washington and pontificate on things artistic and political,” he says, fueling himself through two days of back-to-back interviews with nonstop coffee in his office in Washington’s historic Old Post Office Building, where he soon hopes to hang borrowed works by California artists on the walls.

“I plan to serve by building a huge new consensus to support the arts,” he continues. “I am not going to do that by dividing people, by polarizing people. Arts education” -- by which he means broad-based proselytizing for the arts -- is not a left or right issue, a Democratic or Republican issue. It’s good civic common sense.”

This artist-turned-administrator -- probably best-known for his essay “Can Poetry Matter?,” published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1991 -- was quick to deflate the notion that a poet is necessarily an anti-establishment bohemian. “There are as many political points of view among poets as there are poets. “Poets come in all shapes and sizes, and are of every belief -- I think it’s a terrible stereotype that poets are all of one type,” said Gioia. “It is a stereotype that is fostered by non-poets.”

When asked about the role of the arts endowment in wartime, Gioia once again declined a direct answer and chose instead to ruminate on how the audience’s understanding of art can be heightened in times of crisis.

“The last two performances I went to were Berlioz’ ‘Les Troyens,’ ‘The Trojans,’ at the Met last week, and last night’s premiere of ‘Richard III’ at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington; both deal with war and causes,” he says. “Someone might say: ‘Oh, how safe -- a 19th century French romantic comedy and Shakespeare tragedy. I found both of these things harrowing; seeing them in a time of war was profoundly disturbing to me. In times of great trouble, we understand perhaps more clearly why art is essential.”

Gioia comes to the NEA determined to “restore the public stature and prestige” to the agency, which throughout much of the 1990s was a target for elimination by conservatives in Congress due to its perceived support of “obscene” art.

Congress responded by eliminating the agency’s ability to make most individual artists’ grants, in favor of supporting arts institutions and programs. But Gioia believes the endowment’s image remains suspect in the view of the general public.

“I would be naive as chairman of the NEA not to recognize that the controversies of the ‘90s left the institution with a tarnished or diminished reputation,” Gioia says. “We have to go out and re-create a conversation with the American public if we are to move forward.

“I refuse to believe that the funding of art, and the funding of arts education, is a controversial issue in the United States,” he adds. “I am so bored talking about the NEA as a controversial institution. We have given 120,000 grants, of which 11 were controversial. The most recent of these occurred a decade ago, in a previous century. There are children in school today who were born after the most recent controversy, and my question is: What are we doing for them today?

“The problem with the NEA’s self-image is largely self-inflicted. We’ve hidden from the press for the last 10 years because we are so afraid of creating any controversy.”

Individual NEA fellowships still exist in literature, translation, jazz and folk arts. Gioia says he has no immediate plans to try to reinstate individual artist grants for visual arts or other disciplines in the near future. Like his immediate predecessors’, his agenda calls for institutional support and community outreach.

“I’m pleased that we still have individual grants, but given the financial limits that we have, I think our money is best invested in institutions that have high artistic standards and broad public outreach,” he observes. “If you are a playwright and you’ve got a thriving theater organization in your city, it’s good for the playwright, and it’s good for the audience.”

Consistent with that goal, Gioia is touting a project launched before his tenure but centered on the most lauded poet in literature: “the largest tour of Shakespeare in history,” which will bring actors from distinguished regional theaters into more than 1,000 schools in more than 100 communities in all 50 states. The cost of that program will be announced later this month, but the funding will come from a previous NEA budget, rather than from the $17.5 million requested by President Bush for 2004 (about $2 million more than the 2003 budget).

Gioia says that “growing up poor” in Hawthorne fostered his lifelong commitment to getting arts out of the ivory tower -- his main argument in “Can Poetry Matter?” He felt that pull even while studying for a master’s degree in comparative literature at Harvard. “The longer I stayed at Harvard, not only was I becoming worse as a writer, too self-conscious and too needlessly complex, but I was losing my ability to write for the people I came from,” he says.

Gioia, who followed Harvard with an MBA from Stanford Business School to support his writing habit, was a General Foods executive in New York for 15 years before returning to California and to writing full time. He resigned the General Foods post after losing his first son to sudden infant death syndrome at the age of 4 months.

“That event really went through my life, and my wife’s, like a wildfire,” he says. “A tragedy in one’s life makes one realize what really matters.

“I decided my job didn’t really matter, even though I enjoyed it; I realized that money didn’t matter, even though it’s nice to have. So a few years later, once my next son was born and through the danger period, I just went in and quit.”

It is that dual background in arts and business that Gioia believes makes him an ideal candidate for chief of a federal arts agency.

“When I quit General Foods, I made myself a promise that I would never work again for a large institution,” he says. “So I’ve been turning down university jobs and things like this for years. And I did my best to avoid this job, but I felt that it was important that somebody step forward and lead this fine institution.

“I am a very serious writer, and it is only with great reluctance that I have put aside my own artistic career to come here. I had no personal desire to come to Washington. The reason that I came was that I felt it was important for someone who is a practicing artist, somebody who deeply understands the issues, to take leadership of the NEA.

“My father died about a year and a half ago. He was a working-class Italian from Detroit, raised speaking Italian. He did not want to go fight WWII. But he did it because it was the right thing to do, and barely survived a plane crash. I was being called by my country to fight a battle for the arts. Just because I had other things to do didn’t mean I shouldn’t step forward and do it.”

Gioia laughs a little in his new office, with Washington’s pink spring cherry blossoms visible through the window. “So, here I am,” he adds. “A draftee in the never-ending battle for the arts.”