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Dana Gioia was born in Hawthorne, California, on December 24, 1950. He received a BA from Stanford University. Before returning to Stanford to earn an MBA, he completed an MA in comparative literature at Harvard University, where he studied with the poets Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Fitzgerald. In 1977, Gioia moved to New York to begin a career in business. For fifteen years Gioia worked as a businessman, eventually becoming a vice president of General Foods. In 1992, after publishing his first book of poetry, Daily Horoscope (Graywolf Press), in 1986, he left business to become a full-time writer.
This is one of my absolute favorite poems by Dana Gioia. It is the first poem in the collection titled 99 Poems and is only the first of many sublime poems one will find in this timeless collection. I sometimes wonder if it could possibly be the best poetry collection at this particular time in human history. I purchased my copy some months ago after David Gosselin had recommended it to me, and it has since become one of my most beloved books. It contains an excellent selection of poems spanning the course of Gioia’s career, but at the same time, it is not so exhaustive that it would feel intimidating to some readers. I would definitely recommend it to any poetry lover. If you can afford to spend a little extra, I would also recommend the hardcover over the paperback. For me personally, some books just need to be owned in hardcover, and 99 Poems is one of them. Thank you, David, for such an excellent recommendation!
Now it is possible for each of us to climb that ladder!
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