California Poet Laureate Dana Gioia

Mechanics' Institute is honored to welcome consummate poet and arts advocate Dana Gioia as guest of honor to celebrate National Poetry Month. He will read and talk about his latest collection, 99 Poems: New and Selected. He will share his experiences traveling to communities and schools throughout California's 58 counties to engage people of all ages in the pleasures and inspiration of poetry. Book sale and signing will follow the program.

Dana Gioia will be joined by Julieta Fuentes Roll, Poetry Out Loud Champion for San Francisco County and a student at the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts; and Margo Perin, San Francisco County Poetry Out Loud Coordinator.

Dana Gioia is California's new state Poet Laureate. Appointed by Governor Jerry Brown in December, 2015, Gioia serves as the state advocate for poetry and literature in libraries, classrooms and boardrooms across California. A prolific essayist, reviewer, and translator, Gioia has published fifteen anthologies of poetry and fiction. An award-winning poet, Gioia is the author of Can Poetry Matter?, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, which is credited for helping revive poetry's role in American public life. His poetry collections also include 99 Poems: New & Selected, Daily Horoscope, The Gods of Winter, Interrogations at Noon, which won the American Book Award, and Pity the Beautiful. He is also the former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts where he championed arts education.

As state laureate, Gioia will work to inspire a new generation of writers and celebrate California's great literary legacy. http://danagioia.com/