Becoming a Catholic Writer, according to Dana Gioia
“You can learn nothing from my example!”
Poet and culture critic Dana Gioia gave this keynote talk “Becoming a Catholic Writer" at this year's Catholic Imagination Conference at Notre Dame University.
Gioia founded the Catholic Imagination Conference in 2015. I attended for the first time in 2022 and I wrote about it for The Catholic Thing here: Fostering the Catholic Imagination.
Catholic writers and creators of all sorts often bring away from the Catholic Imagination Conference something they might not have previously imagined was within their reach: the joy and inspiration of knowing they are not alone.— Fostering the Catholic Imagination
I was glad to see the speech posted, since I had to change my plans to attend, and I'm sorry to have missed it. For some reason, the video started with over 20 minutes of music and the title slide before the talk began. This link should start with his appearance. If not scroll to 29:23.
The whole talk is fascinating, but I think you'll enjoy this one great story he told in answer to a question from the audience after the talk.
The questioner asked whether the choice Dana made was difficult, to write privately after hours on his day job as a General Foods executive and not seek publication (1:23:28).
As background, you need to understand after getting a BA at Stanford and an MA at Harvard Dana Gioia went on to get an MBA at Stanford, after he decided to be a poet, because he wanted to make a living outside of academia. He became successful in the business world, a vice-president at General Foods, and he wrote poetry in his off hours. He chose for a long time not to seek publication but to develop his craft independently, and he didn't want people at work to know he was a poet because he thought it could count against him.
In case you don’t know, it is practically every writer's dream, at that time at least, to be published in The New Yorker, and many of us, myself included, sent work there and more often than not received rejection letters or no acknowledgement at all. Being the extraordinarily talented contrarian he is, Dana reversed that. As the story goes, he had the opposite experience of having editors from famous magazines begging him to send in his poetry.
"To be honest I would not have started publishing for probably more years had not someone I know forced me to make a submission. I kept being asked by the editor of the Hudson Review whom I had met. He said, “Well send me some poems." I said, “Yeah yeah yeah,” but I never did. And he asked me again and again and again. And finally he said, “Look you have to promise me you're going to send me poems” (it had been seven years since [he started asking]), so I sent him some poems.
"It usually takes I don't know two years for your work to appear in the Hudson Review. Seven poems of mine appeared at the start of the next issue. And then—I'm not making this up the phone rang and it was Howard Moss, the editor of The New Yorker, who said, "Why didn't you send these poems to me?" I didn't want to publish in The New Yorker, because nobody in my office read the Hudson Review, but they did read The New Yorker, and I didn't want anybody I worked with to know I was a poet so I didn't send him any. So then I had this—another joke—the editor of The New Yorker phoning me and writing me to send him poetry! I'm the only poet in the country that didn't do it [send poems to try to get published in The New Yorker]. Finally I gave him one.
“He published it, and then I was relieved because I realized that nobody in my office read anything but the cartoons in The New Yorker. So then I felt free to lead a literary life!"
“You can learn nothing from my example!”
Another related story not in the talk at CIC happened later. The following is from a little memoir he wrote called, Being Outed, which is available at his website.
"Whenever something of mine appeared in The New Yorker, I would discreetly buy all five copies in the company shop, mail one to my parents, and slip the others into the bottom of the finance department’s bulging recycling bin.
"There was little chance of my colleagues seeing the other journals in which I published, although once a brainy summer intern asked if I had written an article he had seen in The Hudson Review. “My brother recently wrote something for them,” I replied not untruthfully and quickly changed the subject.
"In 1984, however, Esquire permanently blew my cover when I was featured in the first “Esquire Register of Men and Women Under Forty Who Are Changing America.” Someone brought a copy of the issue into the office and passed it around. Had it been merely a literary honor, no one would have noticed, but here was the name of a General Foods executive on a list with really important people like Julius “Doctor J.” Erving, Whoopi Goldberg, Dale Murphy, and Steven Spielberg.
"At that time I worked for the most macho boss in the company, an Annapolis graduate, All-American athlete, and former commanding officer of combat longshoremen (the lucky guys who unload military supplies under enemy fire). He was a brilliant, hot-tempered, fellow who didn’t waste words. For example, he addressed his close associates only by their initials. I was summoned by a secretary to his office where he sat smoking a cigar butt. He motioned me to come closer.
“'D.G., someone told me you wrote poetry.'
“'Yeah, Greg,' I replied. 'I do.'
"He took the greasy stub out of his mouth, ground it into the ashtray, and whispered, not unkindly, only one word, 'Shit.'”
Among the books on Dana Gioia’s desk in the above photo taken at General Foods is his first book of poetry, Daily Horoscope, published in 1986.
Robert McDowell wrote this in a review at The Hudson Review: “Daily Horoscope, in the finest sense, represents the perfect synthesis of maker and object made. It would be specious to praise this volume as a first book. Gioia has given us a book that is more accomplished than recent publications by many more celebrated practitioners.”
Dana will be 74 on December 24. He’s still publishing prolifically and involved in countless projects some of which I’ve come to know about since I met him at CIC in 2022. One project was Fiat Lux, an oratorio on which he collaborated with world-famous Scottish composer Sir James MacMillan, which I attended June 17, 2023, on a press pass at its premiere performance at Christ Cathedral and wrote about in several different articles, including this one published here:
Another project was The Three Feathers. a fairy tale opera with music by composer, Lori Laitman, which was performed in September 23 in Walnut Creek, CA, that Dana got a ticket for me to attend.
Here are three books of some out of several I’ve received from him.
The first I ever received was his latest poetry collection Meet Me at the Lighthouse, which he signed for me at the book launch in February 2023 at Arion Press in San Francisco. The second was the latest of his culture-challenging essays, Catholicism and Poetry, published by Wiseblood Books in September 2023. The third was Homage to Søren Kierkegaard, also published the same month. Homage is an anthology Dana complied with Mary Beth Mangano, which included “Kierkegaard’s Enormous Paradoxes,” one of my poems. The fourth is a scholarly book about his life and work titled Dana Gioia Poet and Critic, published in September 2024. The fifth is his book of essays, Poetry as Enchantment and other essays, which will be released November 12, and I hope to get around to reviewing soon. I almost forgot his revised edition of Seneca: Madness of Hercules and Weep, Shuddder, Die a simultaneously published book about opera, which I didn’t receive.
The latest is a PDF of a large format fine press book that I also hope to review here titled From California. It’s a collaboration that includes twenty-six of Dana’s California poems with California images by wood engraver Richard Wagener. I interviewed Wagener about the origins of the book and about his working methods, and will write more about that later. Dana also suggested I write about the emergence of San Francisco as the center of fine press publishers. Besides the Book Club of California there is Arion, where his son Ted works. Ted has connected me with the right person to schedule a tour. All this is fascinating stuff for my mind to work on, fascinating places to go, and fascinating people to meet!
The book launch in San Francisco of From California is also on November 12. (On November 20 the Book Club of California’s other location in LA will have another Launch Party.)
From California is such an exquisitely produced collector’s item with letterpress printing of each page and each engraving later printed by the artist that it costs around $500, which led to this humorous wording in the invitation.
We offer a guilt-free celebration since the book is so expensive no one is expected to buy a copy.
Thank you for posting this video Rosanne! I always love Dana Gioi’s lectures as well as his poetry.