WASHINGTON, D.C.— “I never wanted this job,” Dana Gioia says of his post as chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts, in a deep, measured baritone. “I came to this job reluctantly, but somebody needed to rebuild the NEA, and unfortunately, it was me.”

Gioia, 57, an acclaimed poet and critic and the former vice president of marketing at General Foods Corporation, only agreed to the position after President Bush’s first appointment, Michael Hammond, died a week after taking office in early 2002. But by all accounts, Gioia has worked miracles within the endowment, bringing it back from the funding and reputation lows resulting from the culture wars of the 1990s. In six years, he’s increased the budget from $115 million to $145 million and not only steered clear of controversy but also courted allies in unlikely places — and in both parties.

The hallmark of the new initiatives launched under his leadership has been their reach. Shakespeare in American Communities, launched in 2003, has brought live performances to all 50 states (employing thousands of actors in the process), and the Big Read, introduced in 2004, is the largest literacy program in U.S. history aside from the WWII-era Armed Services Editions, with 21,000 partner institutions. Operation Homecoming has provided writing workshops to 6,000 U.S. soldiers and their spouses since 2004.

In September, Gioia announced that he is stepping down from his position in January — right around when Bush leaves office — to take a part-time position at the Aspen Institute and, more important, return to writing. ARTINFO spoke with him about bipartisanship, why Americans don’t appreciate the arts, and making up with the muse. You told the New York Times that when you joined in 2002, the NEA was a “wounded institution.” And some people have said you “saved” it.

We’ve been very successful in the last six years in rebuilding the NEA. It’s now an institution that has the good opinion of Congress, the press, and the general public. Most important, we’ve rebuilt it without lowering the standards. We now reach millions of people with programs of the highest quality. And, of course, our budget has grown.

One thing you’ve done is reach out to the Departments of Justice, Defense, and State. What was your motivation?

We were able to get funds from other federal institutions that allowed us to create new programs above and beyond our appropriations. The Department of Defense gave us a million dollars, which we invested in theater to provide for Shakespeare companies visiting military bases and neighboring schools. The Department of Justice provides for after-school theater programs for kids in the poorest neighborhoods in the United States. The State Department has helped us fund new international cultural exchanges. These partnerships not only broaden our reach; they also give us credibility with different sections of society. Six years ago, the NEA was a very isolated institution.

When you came in, you didn’t have any experience in government, right?

Thank God no. For 15 years, I worked in corporate America and wrote at night. Then, in 1992, I quit, and for the next 12 years I was a freelance writer. I wrote poetry and reviewed books and music. I also did arts commentary for BBC Radio. So actually my profession before coming to the NEA was poet and critic — a veritable bohemian!

I can’t imagine coming into the kind of bureaucracy that you must have without any experience and doing as well as you have.

My bizarre background offered certain advantages. As a poet, I understood art from the inside. As a critic, I appreciated the importance of communicating well to the public. And as a former businessman, I understood how to get things done in organizations and create productive partnerships.

When I came to Washington, many of my artist friends in California and New York told me to “fight the good fight.” I felt that fighting was the wrong metaphor. Almost everyone in the United States wants art in their schools and in their communities. I looked at my job as reconciliation — finding ways to make groups, who had been fighting one another, realize that they had common goals. We needed to create a new public consensus to support arts and arts education.

Do you see big differences between the business and art worlds?

The most important thing I learned in business is something that few artists ever learn: the importance of creating win-win situations. In art, one person tends to win the prize, and the others do not. One person gets the part; the others do not. So artists tend to think of the world as a zero-sum game. In business, you learn that you can increase the universe of rewards, and you try to create a situation in which everybody participates in success.

I was able to run the NEA as an arts organization and successfully navigate the complex political world of Washington. As odd as it might seem, I did this by being idealistic and believing that I could speak to the best in people.

One of the things that people say about your tenure is that you’ve democratized the NEA.

We are a public agency, and we cannot ignore whole sections of the country. When I joined the NEA, there were about 80 million Americans who lived in communities not served by the agency. That struck me as a failure of imagination in a democracy. We now have programs of the highest quality in every community in the United States.

Which of your initiatives are you most proud of?

First, I’m proud that we’ve been able to serve as a catalyst for the revival of arts education in the United States. Programs like Shakespeare in American Communities, Poetry Out Loud, and the Big Read are reaching tens of millions of students, and, in the process, providing superb paying employment for thousands of artists.

Second, we’ve been able to change the public conversation about the arts and arts education. After 20 years of being trapped in a public conversation dictated by its enemies, the NEA has taken the leadership in creating an informed conversation about the importance of arts and arts education.

How do you explain the decline in arts education?

Essentially, there are three major trends undermining arts education. One is the systematic dismantling of arts education at every level of American schooling, largely for budgetary reasons. Why did communities make those cuts? Well, that’s number two: American society does not respect or understand the importance of the arts. Consequently, when people are trying to decide what’s important, the arts aren’t on that list. We’ve never had so many artists or professors of art in U.S. history, but these people have become better at talking among themselves than to the general public. There are very few effective cultural public intellectuals left in the United States. And this leads to the third problem, which is that our overly commercialized, dumbed-down mass media has almost eliminated the arts as a topic of conversation or coverage.

What breaks my heart is how difficult it is today for a young person who wants to be an arts critic to make a living. Twenty years ago, it wasn’t as difficult. I paid the bills as a literary critic, music critic, BBC commentator, for a dozen years. But the markets are drying up, the articles are getting shorter, the journals are getting dumber. And no one critic can fight these trends single-handedly. One of the necessary roles of the NEA is to provide leadership in the arts in a society which doesn’t particularly understand them.

You are an idealist.

Unapologetically. I think the fact that I had never worked in government before was an advantage, because I had not lost my idealism or my feistiness.

So why leave now?

There are two reasons. First of all, I’m a poet and a writer. I have given up six years of my creative life. If I wait much longer, I worry that I won’t be able to write well again. No one in official Washington understands what it’s like to be an artist. To them it’s something like playing golf or collecting butterflies.

Second, my success in public office has exacted a huge personal cost. I have traveled every week for six years. I’m exhausted by having lived at that pace. I want to have a private life again. And I want to have an inner life. I’ve given so many speeches in the past six years that I need to shut up for a while.  

A lot of people in Washington are upset that I’m leaving. Leading members of both parties would like me to stay. But the NEA will be well served by having another chairman who will have his or her own passions and interests. It’s important that public institutions change their leadership.

Will President Bush appoint your replacement?

No, whoever wins the election will make the appointment.

Do you think one party is more favorable for arts funding?

One of the real achievements of the last six years is that we’ve built bipartisan and bicameral support. The leadership in both parties now supports the Arts Endowment. In the last two years, for the first time in decades, no member of either party has spoken out against the NEA. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t some people who still dislike us, but they feel that our successes are so widely acknowledged that there would be no point in criticizing us.

Have you met with Senator McCain or Senator Obama?

I have met with hundreds of senators and congressmen, but I have deliberately not intruded in either campaign. I was flattered, however, to see Obama’s arts policy quote me.

Does McCain have an arts policy?

I’m not sure. Although invited, I did not attend either convention. I think the Endowment is best served by keeping out of electoral politics.

How will you spend, say, your first month after you leave?

I’ll walk out the door, take a deep breath, and get to work. I’m taking a half-time job with the Aspen Institute to run their arts and culture programs, and they’re eager for me to begin. But what I look forward to most is being alone in my home in Northern California, staring at a blank sheet of paper, and having an anxiety attack.

Writing is not all it’s cracked up to be.

People say, “Oh, it must be so much fun to write.” It really isn’t. Writing poetry is a very difficult thing to do well. But as with many difficult things, there’s a special satisfaction from using all of the gifts you have.

I look forward to being alone, being quiet, and waiting to see if the Muse still likes me. I’ve been a terrible suitor in the last six years. I hope she hasn’t deserted me for someone younger and better looking.