Dana Gioia's poetry

There's an interesting article in this week's Catholic World Report on Dana Gioia, a poet and a major public figure in the US who is less well known on this side of the pond. It is heartening for us in the UK not only to see Catholics in such positions but to hear them speak openly about their faith (as Gioia does here).

You can read some of Gioia's poems, essays and reviews on his website but I'd like to draw attention to a couple of poems from his most recent collection Pity the Beautiful that might work well in the classroom: 'Majority' and 'Pity the Beautiful' itself.

His lecture on 'The Catholic Writer Today' also sounds fascinating, though I can't find a copy of the text or a recording of the lecture itself. The lecture is summarised here and here.