WordTemple host Katherine Hastings airs a special event held at the WordTemple Poetry Series on March 26, 2016 celebrating our new California State Poet Laureate, Dana Gioia. Gioia is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning poet and critic. Former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, he is the author of four full-length collections of poetry, as well as eight chapbooks. As Chairman of the NEA, Gioia succeeded in garnering enthusiastic bi-partisan support in the United States Congress for the mission of the Arts Endowment, as well as in strengthening the national consensus in favor of public funding for the arts and arts education (Business Week Magazine referred to him as “The Man Who Saved the NEA”). Gioia’s most recent collection, 99 Poems: New & Selected (Graywolf), was named one of the “Best poetry books” by the Washington Post in February 2016. Joining the celebration are Arthur Timpe, a junior at El Molino High School and Sarah Condello, a sophmore at Analy High School, who recite poems learned for the Poetry Out Loud contest, and Daniel Redman who sings original musical settings for poems from Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass.”