PB POETRY FESTIVAL Names Former NEA Chair Dana Gioia as Special Guest Poet in 2015

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. - June 1, 2014 - PRLog -- PALM BEACH POETRY FESTIVAL

Names Former NEA Chair Dana Gioia as
Special Guest Poet for 11th Annual
Palm Beach Poetry Festival in Delray Beach
January 19-24, 2015

(Delray Beach, FL – May 30, 2014)  Miles Coon, Founder & Director of the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, today announced that Dana Gioia, former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (2003-2009), will serve as Special Guest Poet at the 11th annual Palm Beach Poetry Festival, which will be held next January 19-24 at the Delray Beach Center for the Arts.

"Dana Gioia (pronounced: JOY-uh) is not only an excellent poet, he is a true renaissance man,” said Mr. Coon.  “As Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, he reorganized the agency and instituted several fantastic programs that have benefitted cultural organizations throughout America. He really put his strong business background to good use in service of the Arts, as well as his political savvy. To combat conservative resistance to the NEA, Chairman Gioia made certain that a grant was given to a cultural organization in every congressional district, which immediately quelled a lot of the criticism.”

"Mr.Gioia’s presence in Delray Beach next January will be of interest not only to poets, but also to cultural organizations throughout South Florida,” he added.

On Wednesday, January 21, Mr. Gioia will be interviewed by Chard deNiord, the author of five books of poetry and cofounder and former program director of the New England College MFA Program in Poetry. A Professor of English and Creative Writing at Providence College, Mr. deNiord interviewed U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Tretheway at the 10th annual Palm Beach Poetry Festival.

About Dana Gioia:
Poet and critic Dana Gioia is an internationally recognized man of letters. He recently published his fourth volume of poems, Pity the Beautiful (http://www.danagioia.net/books/poetry/ptb.htm), and his poetry collection Interrogations at Noon won the 2002 American Book Award. This year, he was selected for the prestigious Aiken Taylor Award. A native Californian of Italian and Mexican descent, he received a BA and MBA from Stanford University and an MA in Comparative Literature from Harvard.

As Chairman of the NEA under President George W. Bush, Mr. Gioia succeeded in garnering enthusiastic bi-partisan support in the United States Congress for the mission of the Arts Endowment, as well as strengthening the national consensus in favor of public funding for the arts and arts education. Business Week referred to him as “The Man Who Saved the NEA.”

His creation of a series of NEA National Initiatives combined with a wider distribution of direct grants to reach previously underserved communities made the agency truly national in scope, particularly through such programs as Shakespeare in American Communities, Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience, NEA Jazz Masters, American Masterpieces and Poetry Out Loud.

About the Palm Beach Poetry Festival 2015:
The 11th annual Palm Beach Poetry Festival will be held January 19-24, 2015 at the Delray Beach Center for the Arts. The Festival will once again feature about a dozen top poets at numerous ticketed public events, including readings, talks and a lively panel discussion.  In addition, workshop participants will read at several late-night open mics, free to the public. Tickets will go on sale to the public later this year through the festival website and at the Crest Theatre Box Office at the Delray Beach Center for the Arts.

The Palm Beach Poetry Festival is generously sponsored by Morgan Stanley, the Windler Group of Morgan Stanley’s Atlanta Office; the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County (http://www.palmbeachculture.com/), the Palm Beach County Tourism Development Council and the Board of Commissioners of Palm Beach County; The Palm Beach Post (http://www.palmbeachpost.com/); Visit Florida; WLRN;and Murder on the Beach (http://www.murderonthebeach.com/), Delray Beach’s independent bookseller.

For more information about the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, please visit www.palmbeachpoetryfestival.org (http://www.palmbeachpoetryfestival.com).

Available for Interview:
Miles Coon
PalmBeachPoeFest@aol.com

Media Contact:
Gary Schweikhart
PR-BS, Inc.
561.756.4298

gary@pr-bs.net