When Dana Gioia spoke at my undergraduate commencement, he met his naysayers with humor: “Some of you have complained that I am not famous enough. I couldn’t agree more. I am not nearly famous enough.” His latest project seems poised to put the record straight:
WASHINGTON—The National Endowment for the Arts announced Monday that it has begun construction on a 1.3 billion, 14-line lyric poem—its largest investment in the nation’s aesthetic-industrial complex since the 850 million interpretive-dance budget of 1985.
“America’s metaphors have become strained beyond recognition, our nation’s verses are severely overwrought, and if one merely examines the internal logic of some of these archaic poems, they are in danger of completely falling apart,” said the project’s head stanza foreman Dana Gioia. “We need to make sure America’s poems remain the biggest, best-designed, best-funded poems in the world.”
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