We talk with National Endowment for the Arts chairman Dana Gioia about poetry, the state of reading in America, and what government can do to promote literature. We also play a selection from POETRY OUT LOUD, a CD produced by the NEA and the Poetry Foundation. On our show for broadcast, we read Jour de l’An, an excerpt from a story about New Years Day in Provence by Writers Voice host, Francesca Rheannon, but are unable to include it in this podcast, since it has copyrighted music embedded, and the musician complained. (Some say rebroadcast on the Web from licensed radio broadcast is legal, but WV prefers to take this portion of the show down). But you can read the whole piece here — and get the story’s delicious Internet Apple Crisp recipe! It was a “hit gastronomique” in Provence.
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[...] idea of the Big Read, a program by the National Endowment for the Arts to encourage reading. When I interviewed the founder of the Big Read, Dana Gioia, back in 2005, he asked me why there were no Big Read programs in Massachusetts. There [...]