SECOND BEST OPTION:

Poet a Contender to Run Federal Arts Agency (ROBIN POGREBIN, October 23, 2002, NY Times)

The poet, critic and anthologist Dana Gioia has emerged as the leading candidate to become the next chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, according to sources close to the process. The previous chairman of that agency, Michael P. Hammond, died in January after just a week in the post.

Mr. Gioia's nomination, which must be confirmed by the Senate, is expected to be announced by President Bush in about two weeks, a government official said. Because of the endowment's history as a lightning rod for impassioned debates about the direction of culture in the country and the government's role in financing it, the chairmanship is a sensitive post that draws far more attention than other positions with influence over annual budgets far larger than the endowment's $115 million.

Reached by telephone, Mr. Gioia would confirm only that he was being considered. "Yes, I have been talking to the White House about this post," he said. "I can't say anything more than that because it would be inappropriate at this point. I am not a nominee."

Mr. Gioia (pronounced JOY-a), 51, has published three books of poetry: "Daily Horoscope" (1986), "The Gods of Winter" (1991) and "Interrogations at Noon" (2001), which won the American Book Award in May. He is well known as someone who has revived rhyme and meter, though he also writes in free verse.

He was widely recognized for his essay "Can Poetry Matter?," which appeared in The Atlantic in 1991. In the essay, Mr. Gioia argued that a clubby academic subculture that had grown up around poetry was preventing it from being widely available to the mainstream. The essay prompted considerable debate and was included in Mr. Gioia's 1992 collection of essays, "Can Poetry Matter?: Essays on Poetry and American Culture," which was selected by Publishers Weekly as one of its Best Books of 1992 and became a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award.

If they aren't going to do away with it they may as well have this guy head it.
Posted by Orrin Judd at October 23, 2002 4:23 PM