18 pages • 36 minutes read
Dana GioiaPrayer
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1991A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Literary Context: New Formalism
Having studied with American poets Robert Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Bishop at Harvard, Gioia took to heart Bishop’s idea that “[o]ne did not interpret poetry, one experienced it [. . .] One did not need a sophisticated theory. One needed only intelligence, intuition, and a good dictionary” (Gioia, Dana. Studying with Miss Bishop: Memoirs from a Young Writer's Life, Paul Dry Books, 2021, p. 56). In part due to this point of view, Gioia, as he gained renown, became connected to New Formalism, a movement associated with Bishop and her poetic influence in the 1980s. This moniker was used to describe those poets moving away from confessional free verse back to traditional forms and techniques, such as meter, rhyme, and narrative structure. The term New Formalism, however, was then used to describe what was perceived as racist, sexist, reactionary, and neo-conservative work in the poetry world; in other words, the term was eventually seen as pejorative. Consequently, several New Formalist poets resented the label’s connotation since it denied the poets’ ethnicities and dedication to craft.
This back and forth ignited a hostile intellectual fight called the Poetry Wars. In 1991, Gioia’s essay “Can Poetry Matter?” added to the controversy by claiming that poetry had become stultified by the academic elite (See: Further Reading & Resources). Gioia advocated that poets should work harder to educate the public about poetry, which should not be limited to academics or poets themselves. This essay elicited debate from several sources, including poets, academics, and the public. While this debate was heated at the time, free-verse and formal poems now exist side by side in most contemporary journals. Gioia is remembered now as the successful chairman of the NEA and a significant American poet, regardless of style. His poems as varied as “Prayer” and “The Sunday News” are lauded. He is often compared to other American poets who worked in both traditions, such as A. E. Stallings, Donald Justice, Howard Nemerov, Annie Finch, and Richard Wilbur.
Autobiographical Context: The Death of Gioia’s Son
In 1987, Gioia’s first-born son, Michael Jasper Gioia, died from sudden infant death syndrome at four months old. This tragic event shaped Gioia’s artistic life and his future choices. Speaking to interviewer Scott Thomas Anderson in 2018, he said, “We had this beautiful, happy, healthy little boy [… and] were shocked by how joyful we were to be parents. When he died, it plunged us into a depression, a sadness and a mourning, that lasted for years” (See: Further Reading & Resources). The grieving Gioia wrote several poems about the event that were published in his second collection, The Gods of Winter (1991), which he dedicated to Michael Jasper. The trauma also led Gioia to quit his corporate job as a marketing executive. He has specifically stated that the poem “Prayer” came out of this hardship and has irrevocably autobiographical components. However, Gioia also said:
[T]he best poetry is usually personal without being strictly autobiographical […] the poet isn’t simply talking about himself or herself, but finds a way to address and engage the reader […] the poem is about us not about me (See: Further Reading & Resources).
This implies that while Michael Jasper is an important subject of his writing, the emotions expressed within such poems can be read as universal as well as autobiographical.
