The Mariposa County Arts Council is pleased to bring California State Poet Laureate, Dana Gioia, to Mariposa for a free evening of poetry on Thursday, July 13, 2017. The event will be held at the Alley Beer and Wine Bar on their outdoor stage in Mariposa (located at 5027 CA-140) at 6:30 p.m. Complementing the reading, Adam Burns will provide live music followed by a facilitated question and answer session. A poetry open mic featuring local poets will precede Gioia’s presentation from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. The Arts Council invites the public to attend both the poetry open mic and Gioia’s reading.
As California’s Poet Laureate, Gioia (pictured above) is a Governor's appointee whose mission is to advocate for the art of poetry in classrooms and boardrooms across the state, to inspire an emerging generation of literary artists, and to educate all Californians about the many poets and authors who have influenced our great state through creative literary expression.

For the past year and a half, Gioia has been traveling across California as a part of an on-going 58-county tour: On the Road with the Poet Laureate. Gioia’s goal is to engage with each county’s community individually, provide public readings, educate civic and state leaders about the value of poetry and creative expression, and bring poetry to students who might otherwise have little opportunity to be exposed.

"I believe that poetry is for everyone," said Gioia. "It is not a remote or intellectual art. Poetry is our most concise, expressive, and memorable way of using words, and it can play a powerful role in schools and civic life. I am honored to become poetry's public servant in California."

Dana Gioia is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning poet. Former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Gioia is a native Californian of Italian and Mexican descent. He received a B.A. and a M.B.A. from Stanford University and an M.A. in Comparative Literature from Harvard University.

Gioia has published five full-length collections of poetry, most recently 99 Poems: New & Selected. His poetry collection, Interrogations at Noon, won the 2002 American Book Award. An influential critic as well, Gioia’s 1991 volume Can Poetry Matter?, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award, is credited with helping to revive the role of poetry in American public culture. In 2014 he won the Aiken-Taylor Award for lifetime achievement in American poetry.

For more information please call the Arts Council please visit the Arts Council’s website (MariposaArtsCouncil.org) or call the office at (209) 966-3155. For more information about Dana Gioia, please visit his website at DanaGioia.com.

The MARIPOSA COUNTY ARTS COUNCIL, INC. is an incorporated not-for-profit organization, created to promote and support all forms of the cultural arts, for all ages, throughout Mariposa County.