In case you don’t know, Dana Gioia is a poet, and head of the National Endowment for the Arts, the government agency in the spotlight this week, not for Mapplethorpes and Sprinkles, but because President Bush has proposed doubling its budget. More Drunken Sailor Behavior or justifiable this time? Much of the conversation about this seems to be revolving around the Gioia’s qualities and the direction in which he’s taking the agency.

Here’s his website

Barbara Nicolosi met him last year and blogged about it here.

Commonweal profiled him last year

The WSJ runs a piece on his efforts (along with Laura Bush’s) today

Roger Kimball wrote about Gioia and increased funding in NRO a few days ago.

And there’s a little bit of blogging about it over at the New Criterion’s blog