C21 Presents “Poetry and the Catholic Imagination” with Dana Gioia

On September 29, 2023, the Boston College English Department and C21 Center hosted Dana Gioia, author and poet laureate of California, for a talk entitled ‘Poetry and the Catholic Imagination.’

Gioia’s talk consisted of four parts: First, addressing what it means to be a Catholic poet; next, why it matters to others; then, a live reading of several acclaimed poems, followed lastly by Q&A.

Gioia described his background and early life coming from a working class family on the “bad side” of Los Angeles and being the first college student in his entire social circle. As he pursued his education, he recognized his vocation early: to be a poet.

He emphasized that he did not choose poetry so much as it was given to him. He confessed that at first he didn’t know what it meant, and further that he initially saw Catholicism as secondary to his vocation as a writer because he regarded religious poetry as overly pious and unengaged with the broader culture.

However, Gioia’s worry that he “[didn’t] have a home as a writer” eventually drove him to the world of Catholic imagination, which he pithily expressed as “see[ing] everything simultaneously twice”—both the visible and invisible, the immanent and the transcendent world, a world that is ordinary but overflowing with something, or rather Someone, far beyond comprehension.

Impelled to find a place in the world of Catholic imagination and in turn give it a voice in a time when it seems to be in retreat, in 2015 Gioia assembled a poetry conference at the University of Southern California. He modeled it after St. Augustine’s idea of the ‘City of God’ and described it as “the slums of the City.”

The goal of the Catholic Imagination Conference was simply to “help revive Catholic literary life” and give it a wider dissemination in a paradoxical time and place where the largest religion per capita has almost no artistic presence compared to its status in the 20th century with authors such as Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, and Evelyn Waugh.

Gioia explained that his objectives were and still are to encourage a new wave of Catholic art that can engage with American culture, which he defined as a great conversation, one that is clearly lost, angry, and unhealthy. He firmly held that Catholicism has great power to redirect this dialogue and effect a conversion with the help of divine providence.

After the lecture section, Gioia read out six of his poems with some background and explanation: “The Road,” “The Angel with the Broken Wing,” “Tinsel, Frankincense and Fir,” “Majority,” “Psalm to Our Lady, Queen of the Angels,” and “Marriage of Many Years.”

During the Q&A section, Gioia clarified that while he approved of the cultural endeavors of Popes John Paul II and Francis from the Catholic hierarchy, he thought that “We cannot expect the Church to do the work of culture.” He argued instead that the relative independence of artists provides more opportunity and flexibility to engage effectively with modern culture in its vicissitudes. In short, it is largely up to the laity to spearhead a cultural renewal.

Gioia further argued that poetry is far more integral to the Catholic faith than the vast majority would admit, citing the psalms and the Gospel canticles of Zechariah and the Magnificat as the origin and font of Christian poetry and imagination. He supported the position that the arts tend to reach and convert souls more directly than sheer intellect, however keen and convincing. “When the Church lost beauty…[it] lost the main way God is in the world.” A recovery of such beauty could begin to reverse the Church’s losses.