New Iowa Poet Laureate Named

Governor Vilsack and Lt. Governor Pederson have appointed Robert Dana to be Iowa’s new Poet Laureate. Dana will serve a two-year appointment as the state’s symbolic leader of poetry. As Poet Laureate, Dana will deliver poems at official Iowa public events at the invitation of the governor, and will develop a signature project of his choosing to advance public appreciation for poetry.

“Robert Dana has been a strong advocate for poetry and the teaching of poets throughout his distinguished career in Iowa,” Lt. Governor Sally Pederson said. “As Iowa’s Poet Laureate, he will be a strong and passionate voice for Iowa’s unique culture and the inspiration that poetry can provide.”

Robert Dana was born in Boston in 1929. After serving in the South Pacific in World War II, he moved to Iowa where he attended Drake University and graduated from one of the first classes of the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. He has published thirteen books of poetry, beginning in 1957 and ending most recently in 2004 with his latest book The Morning of The Red Admirals. He has also authored a book about small publishers in America and another one on Paul Engle and the Iowa Writer’s Workshop.

Dana’s poetry has received numerous awards and honors, including the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Poetry Award, the Rilke prize, National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship in 1985 and 1993. He was invited to the White House Salute to Poetry and American Poets, 1980.

He resurrected the historically famous but long dormant North American Review in 1964, moving its editorial base from Boston, where it originated and gained its initial fame in the 19th century, to Iowa, where it remains to this day, and he was its editor from 1964 till 1968.

During his career, Robert Dana has published in almost every important magazine, and he has taught nationally and internationally as a guest poet. He was an early advisor in the creation of the Des Moines National Poetry Festival and was a national guest poet in 2000.

Retired from teaching after forty years as Poet-in-Residence at Cornell College, he has also served as Distinguished Visiting Writer at Stockholm University and at several American colleges and universities.