Poet warns U.S. is losing culture

America is in danger of losing its literary culture, according to businessman-turned-poet Dana Gioia. Gioia, who quit his job as vice-president at Kraft General Foods this year to concentrate on poetry, spoke to a crowd of about 25 last Friday. The event was sponsored by the English Department's writing program and hosted by the Philomathean Society. "I feel the problem in America is that America does not have an intellectual culture outside the academy," Gioia said. "There is an anti-intellectualism in America that's considered manly." Gioia's responded to attacks on his controversial 1991 article in The Atlantic Monthly entitled "Can Poetry Matter?". In the magazine Gioia wrote that American poetry belongs to a subculture. "No longer part of the mainstream artistic and intellectual life," Gioia wrote. "It has become the specialized occupation of a relatively small and isolated group." In response to letters in the Atlantic that claimed poetry was never important in America, Gioia's speech explained how poetry fit into American society. "Up until the 20th century, poetry was seen as enterntainment," Gioia said. "Longfellow was the best-selling author of any genre of the 19th century," Gioia said. "By Longfellow's fiftieth birtday, 300,000 copies of his books had been sold. Virtually every American had read Longfellow." Gioia also said that newspapers were once the main outlet for poetry in America. When involved in circulation wars, papers often commissioned poems to boost circulation, he said. "Poetry was seen as a public art," he added. "Capable, at its best, as the ultimate expression of our national identity." Miners in Leadville, Colorado, produced Shakesperean plays as means of entertainment and even former President Ulysses Grant played Desdemona in an Army version of Othello during the Mexican War. Now poetry has been fading as an important part of education, which he traces to "the vanishing of a public intellectual person," he said. He said memorization and performance of poetry should be taught in schools. "I was very impressed," College junior Adam Korengold said. "I guess what we can take from that is that you can apply the knowledge of the word in daily life." Gioia left Kraft General Foods in 1992 to be a full-time writer. Before resigning he said he would work eleven to twelve hours days and come home at night and write. Gioia said his co-workers were "shocked" when he told them he was resigning. "If you truly have your passions you'll be better. You have to live for yourself, not other people," Gioia said. "Half the people in America have unfulfilled dreams."

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