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Meet Me at the Lighthouse: Poems
A wondrous new collection by Dana Gioia, “one of America’s premier poets and critics” (Julia Alvarez).
Dana Gioia has been hailed for decades as a master of traditional lyric forms, whose expansive and accessible poems are offerings of rare poignancy and insight. In Meet Me at the Lighthouse , he invites us back to old Los Angeles, where the shabby nightclub of the title beckons us into its noirish immortality. Elsewhere, he laments the once-vibrant neighborhood where he grew up, now bulldozed, and recalls his working-class family of immigrants. Gioia describes a haunting from his mother on his birthday, Christmas Eve. Another poem remembers his uncle, a US Merchant Marine. And “The Ballad of Jesús Ortiz” tells the story of his great-grandfather, a Mexican vaquero who was shot dead at a tavern in Wyoming during a dispute over a bar tab. “I praise my ancestors, the unkillable poor,” Gioia writes. This book is dedicated to their memory.
Including poems, song lyrics, translations, and concluding with an unsettling train ride to the underworld, Meet Me at the Lighthouse is a luminous exploration of nostalgia, mortality, and what makes a life worth living and remembering.
Dana Gioia has been hailed for decades as a master of traditional lyric forms, whose expansive and accessible poems are offerings of rare poignancy and insight. In Meet Me at the Lighthouse , he invites us back to old Los Angeles, where the shabby nightclub of the title beckons us into its noirish immortality. Elsewhere, he laments the once-vibrant neighborhood where he grew up, now bulldozed, and recalls his working-class family of immigrants. Gioia describes a haunting from his mother on his birthday, Christmas Eve. Another poem remembers his uncle, a US Merchant Marine. And “The Ballad of Jesús Ortiz” tells the story of his great-grandfather, a Mexican vaquero who was shot dead at a tavern in Wyoming during a dispute over a bar tab. “I praise my ancestors, the unkillable poor,” Gioia writes. This book is dedicated to their memory.
Including poems, song lyrics, translations, and concluding with an unsettling train ride to the underworld, Meet Me at the Lighthouse is a luminous exploration of nostalgia, mortality, and what makes a life worth living and remembering.
72 pages, Paperback
First published February 7, 2023
About the author
Dana Gioia
163 books123 followersDana Gioia is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning poet. Former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Gioia is a native Californian of Italian and Mexican descent. He received a B.A. and a M.B.A. from Stanford University and an M.A. in Comparative Literature from Harvard University. (Gioia is pronounced JOY-uh.)
Gioia has published four full-length collections of poetry, as well as eight chapbooks. His poetry collection, Interrogations at Noon, won the 2002 American Book Award. An influential critic as well, Gioia's 1991 volume Can Poetry Matter?, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award, is credited with helping to revive the role of poetry in American public culture.
Gioia's reviews have appeared in many magazines including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Washington Post Book World, The New York Times Book Review, Slate, and The Hudson Review. Gioia has written two opera libretti and is an active translator of poetry from Latin, Italian, and German.
As Chairman of the NEA, Gioia succeeded in garnering enthusiastic bi-partisan support in the United States Congress for the mission of the Arts Endowment, as well as in strengthening the national consensus in favor of public funding for the arts and arts education. (Business Week Magazine referred to him as "The Man Who Saved the NEA.")
Gioia's creation of a series of NEA National Initiatives combined with a wider distribution of direct grants to reach previously underserved communities making the agency truly national in scope. Through programs such as Shakespeare in American Communities, Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience, NEA Jazz Masters, American Masterpieces, and Poetry Out Loud, the Arts Endowment has successfully reached millions of Americans in all corners of the country.
The Big Read became the largest literary program in the history of the federal government. By the end of 2008, 400 communities had held month-long celebrations of great literature. Because of these successes as well as the continued artistic excellence of the NEA's core grant programs, the Arts Endowment, under Chairman Gioia, reestablished itself as a preeminent federal agency and a leader in the arts and arts education.
Renominated in November 2006 for a second term and once again unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Dana Gioia is the ninth Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.
Gioia left his position as Chairman on January 22, 2009. In 2011 Gioia became the Judge Widney Professor of Poetry and Public Culture at the University of Southern California where he teaches each fall semester.
Gioia has been the recipient of ten honorary degrees. He has won numerous awards, including the 2010 Laetare Medal from Notre Dame. He and his wife, Mary, have two sons. He divides his time between Los Angeles and Sonoma County, California
Gioia has published four full-length collections of poetry, as well as eight chapbooks. His poetry collection, Interrogations at Noon, won the 2002 American Book Award. An influential critic as well, Gioia's 1991 volume Can Poetry Matter?, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award, is credited with helping to revive the role of poetry in American public culture.
Gioia's reviews have appeared in many magazines including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Washington Post Book World, The New York Times Book Review, Slate, and The Hudson Review. Gioia has written two opera libretti and is an active translator of poetry from Latin, Italian, and German.
As Chairman of the NEA, Gioia succeeded in garnering enthusiastic bi-partisan support in the United States Congress for the mission of the Arts Endowment, as well as in strengthening the national consensus in favor of public funding for the arts and arts education. (Business Week Magazine referred to him as "The Man Who Saved the NEA.")
Gioia's creation of a series of NEA National Initiatives combined with a wider distribution of direct grants to reach previously underserved communities making the agency truly national in scope. Through programs such as Shakespeare in American Communities, Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience, NEA Jazz Masters, American Masterpieces, and Poetry Out Loud, the Arts Endowment has successfully reached millions of Americans in all corners of the country.
The Big Read became the largest literary program in the history of the federal government. By the end of 2008, 400 communities had held month-long celebrations of great literature. Because of these successes as well as the continued artistic excellence of the NEA's core grant programs, the Arts Endowment, under Chairman Gioia, reestablished itself as a preeminent federal agency and a leader in the arts and arts education.
Renominated in November 2006 for a second term and once again unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Dana Gioia is the ninth Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.
Gioia left his position as Chairman on January 22, 2009. In 2011 Gioia became the Judge Widney Professor of Poetry and Public Culture at the University of Southern California where he teaches each fall semester.
Gioia has been the recipient of ten honorary degrees. He has won numerous awards, including the 2010 Laetare Medal from Notre Dame. He and his wife, Mary, have two sons. He divides his time between Los Angeles and Sonoma County, California
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
July 2, 2023
When it's great, it's great. When it's not, it's not.
March 17, 2023
The collection feels like a mix between a guided tour of a dreamscape and an eclectic scrapbook; Gioia gifts us images that are clear and concrete, yet suspended in a realm that flirts with reality. I felt a delightful sense of discovery with the musicality on every page. These poems exist in a special sphere that “sings like a car radio, and no one / Asks your age because we’re all immortal.” Throughout Meet Me at the Lighthouse, Gioia’s use of formal techniques like rhyme, lyricism, borrowed language, and fixed forms invoke the comfort and rhythm of memory—how we erode the past into narrative gems.
full review at https://www.arkint.org/reviews/meet-m...
full review at https://www.arkint.org/reviews/meet-m...
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October 18, 2024"Live long enough, and you become a Victorian,....
The sun never sets on your nostalgia."
The sun never sets on your nostalgia."
February 27, 2025
4.5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨
Dana Gioia’s poems thrive in their deceptive simplicity. I absolutely loved the gems found throughout, and appreciated nearly all of the selections.
Dana Gioia’s poems thrive in their deceptive simplicity. I absolutely loved the gems found throughout, and appreciated nearly all of the selections.
March 29, 2023
Chapters 2 & 3 were very good.
February 19, 2023
Meet me at the Lighthouse
Poems so good they seem familiar the first time you read them! The trip to Hell is not to be missed!
Poems so good they seem familiar the first time you read them! The trip to Hell is not to be missed!
February 10, 2023
Loved it! One of my favorite contemporary poets. I will be buying copies of this for my friends in LA. They will love some of the pieces in this.
November 21, 2023
eloquent and lyrical
What a brilliant and beautiful collection. There are some real stunners here. Accessible but also complex, and such a variety of forms.
What a brilliant and beautiful collection. There are some real stunners here. Accessible but also complex, and such a variety of forms.
May 14, 2024
A great volume of poetry.
December 5, 2024
Summary: A collection of poems reflecting memories of people from several generations as well as the places of Gioia’s life.
I’ve suggested to others wanting to begin reading poetry to find an anthology and notice whose poetry you like and explore those poets further. Here, I am following my own advice, having encountered and liked Dana Gioia’s poetry in an anthology. And in this case, it was good advice. There was so much I connected with in these poems.
Many of these are about memories, typified in the opening and title poem, “Meet Me at the Lighthouse.” He recalls an old nightclub, on a foggy pier, speaks to an anonymous friend who has died, urging him to meet him there for one night of listening to some of the greats in jazz–Gerry Mulligan, Cannonball Adderly, Hampton Hawes, Stan Getz, Chet Baker, and Art Pepper. Who of us hasn’t remembered places like this and ghosts of our past and wished for ‘one more time?”
In “Three Drunk Poets” he recalls the crazy things we do in our youth. In this case, he recalls a night where, with two other poet friends in a small town, they challenged each other to keep walking until they ran out of remembered poems. They ran out of city lights before they did poems, with a coyote joining the recitation. At that, they turned around.
“Tinsel, Frankincense, and Fir” evokes memories of the Christmas season. Like many of us, his decorations are old and carry memories of Christmases past–and the ghosts of family.
Gioia evokes other ghosts. One is of an uncle, Theodore Ortiz, who joined the U.S. Merchant Marine, serving until his early death. Another is of the life and death of his great grandfather, Jesus Ortiz, and of the two boys who followed him as cowboys.
He writes several poems about Los Angeles. “Psalm and Lament for Los Angeles” paraphrases Psalm 137, setting it in the demolished places of his childhood. He asks, “What was there to sing in a strange and empty land?” His lament recalls the feelings of revisiting my home town of Youngstown and missing so many of the places of my youth–my house, my school, my church, the department store where both my father and I worked.
He also recalls the hot summer nights and the passions of the flesh so near the surface while another poem recalls the missed chances of romance.
In the final poem, “The Underworld,” Gioia joins the ranks of poets who chronicle a descent into hell. He alludes to Virgil, Dante, Senecas, Christopher Marlowe, Yeats, and T.S. Eliot. He concludes with “Disappointments” what was not there. He captures the nothingness that the Bible calls the “outer darkness.”
I found that there was a lot I could connect with in Gioia. Perhaps what I like as a relative neophyte at reading poetry is the accessibility of what he writes. Familiar verse structures and rhyme schemes. A story line. Perhaps as well in this collection, his remembering provokes my own. He recalls what is both sweet and sad in life and reminds us of how often these come together.
Now to find more of his work!
I’ve suggested to others wanting to begin reading poetry to find an anthology and notice whose poetry you like and explore those poets further. Here, I am following my own advice, having encountered and liked Dana Gioia’s poetry in an anthology. And in this case, it was good advice. There was so much I connected with in these poems.
Many of these are about memories, typified in the opening and title poem, “Meet Me at the Lighthouse.” He recalls an old nightclub, on a foggy pier, speaks to an anonymous friend who has died, urging him to meet him there for one night of listening to some of the greats in jazz–Gerry Mulligan, Cannonball Adderly, Hampton Hawes, Stan Getz, Chet Baker, and Art Pepper. Who of us hasn’t remembered places like this and ghosts of our past and wished for ‘one more time?”
In “Three Drunk Poets” he recalls the crazy things we do in our youth. In this case, he recalls a night where, with two other poet friends in a small town, they challenged each other to keep walking until they ran out of remembered poems. They ran out of city lights before they did poems, with a coyote joining the recitation. At that, they turned around.
“Tinsel, Frankincense, and Fir” evokes memories of the Christmas season. Like many of us, his decorations are old and carry memories of Christmases past–and the ghosts of family.
Gioia evokes other ghosts. One is of an uncle, Theodore Ortiz, who joined the U.S. Merchant Marine, serving until his early death. Another is of the life and death of his great grandfather, Jesus Ortiz, and of the two boys who followed him as cowboys.
He writes several poems about Los Angeles. “Psalm and Lament for Los Angeles” paraphrases Psalm 137, setting it in the demolished places of his childhood. He asks, “What was there to sing in a strange and empty land?” His lament recalls the feelings of revisiting my home town of Youngstown and missing so many of the places of my youth–my house, my school, my church, the department store where both my father and I worked.
He also recalls the hot summer nights and the passions of the flesh so near the surface while another poem recalls the missed chances of romance.
In the final poem, “The Underworld,” Gioia joins the ranks of poets who chronicle a descent into hell. He alludes to Virgil, Dante, Senecas, Christopher Marlowe, Yeats, and T.S. Eliot. He concludes with “Disappointments” what was not there. He captures the nothingness that the Bible calls the “outer darkness.”
I found that there was a lot I could connect with in Gioia. Perhaps what I like as a relative neophyte at reading poetry is the accessibility of what he writes. Familiar verse structures and rhyme schemes. A story line. Perhaps as well in this collection, his remembering provokes my own. He recalls what is both sweet and sad in life and reminds us of how often these come together.
Now to find more of his work!
June 5, 2026
These poems were varied in tone, structure, and theme. Some shared a costal theme (as in the title poem) but others were about relationships, were translations, or were written as song lyrics.
There were three poems from this collection that I particularly enjoyed:
The third one was "Hot Summer Night," written as lyrics for a song for Helen Sung. You can listen to it on Youtube.
There were three poems from this collection that I particularly enjoyed:
Seaward
Kneel on the stones,
the sea commands.
Then cup your hands
in the shallow tide.
Quench your thirst
with stinging brine.
No taste more bitter
nor truer than mine.
Savor the blessings
of my refusal.
No argosy
will satiate
the hungers of
your restlessness.
No harbor house
your homelessness.
The empty lighthouse
flanks the sound,
mute memorial
to the drowned.
Stand on the dock
as the ocean swells.
Death is what happens
to somebody else.
Traveler
by Antonio Machado
(translated by Dana Goia)
Traveler, your footsteps
are the road. There's nothing more.
Traveler, there is no road,
the road is made by walking.
Walking makes the road, and if you turn around
you only see the path
you cannot walk again.
Traveler, there is no road,
only a track of foam upon the sea.
The third one was "Hot Summer Night," written as lyrics for a song for Helen Sung. You can listen to it on Youtube.
June 30, 2026
"Live long enough, and you become a Victorian,/" Dana Gioia observes; "The sun never sets on your nostalgia." ("Map of the Lost Empire") The poems and translations in MEET ME AT THE LIGHTHOUSE are drenched in memory and personal history that is, in poetry's unique alchemy, simultaneously universal. As readers, we meet the people and places Gioia has cherished, to celebrate them one last time: his friends ("Three Drunk Poets"), his beloved mother ("Tinsel, Frankincense, and Fir"), his great-grandfather known only through legend ("The Ballad of Jesus Ortiz"), and the city of Los Angeles which he honors with a series of psalms. "You don't fall in love with Los Angeles/ Until you've seen it from a distance after dark./ . . . That's when the City of Angels appears." ("Psalm of the Heights").
Angels appear everywhere throughout this beautiful work; this is poetry to be savored. Enjoy.
Angels appear everywhere throughout this beautiful work; this is poetry to be savored. Enjoy.
September 11, 2025
I actually really enjoyed how Gioia included a section of poems that he liked from other poets. He writes in “Can Poetry Matter” about how poetry should be shared and recited, more like a musical performance than an often solitary, quiet self reading. The idea of including poems that you like or that play on similar themes to your own poetry is akin to touring artists performing cover songs at their shows- it’s a bridging factor that is sometimes needed between the artist and the consumer.
“At The Crossroads” and “Travel” are really beautiful poems and made me a fan of Dana Gioia.
“At The Crossroads” and “Travel” are really beautiful poems and made me a fan of Dana Gioia.
January 11, 2026
This is a lively (almost said heady) brew, a great mix of evocative poems ("Map of the Lost Empire"), song lyrics, and a sequence of poems about a train to the land of the dead. There is also a very moving and rich "ballad" of the poet's great-grandfather. I often think that reprinted song lyrics without music are lacking in music, but these lyrics are fun and playful and rhythmic. I love the way that this collection moves between song and lyric poem in confident ways that do both justice. There is much here to be enjoyed.
August 18, 2025
this is a collection of poetry written by an LA native, mourning the loss of a city that's evolved beyond recognition, while also capturing its allure that continues to breed transplants
i know i cant do away the ethical dilemma of being an LA transplant by reading poetry but ugh, if i dare say it's a good place to start ...
i know i cant do away the ethical dilemma of being an LA transplant by reading poetry but ugh, if i dare say it's a good place to start ...
August 25, 2025
Dana Gioia is always worth reading, no exception here. That said, for introductions to his poetry, I'd recommend 99 Poems over this, which has more standout entries. Enjoyed Travel, Three Drunk Poets and Maps of a Lost Empire. But fewer poems here that I'd return to and/or memorise.
Has the advantage of being short enough to flick through.
Has the advantage of being short enough to flick through.
May 21, 2023
Excellent as always. Already excited to revisit these gems, especially The Underworld and The Ballad of Jesús Ortiz.
August 9, 2023
The crowd will be quiet—only ghosts at the bar—
So you, old friend, won’t feel out of place.
So you, old friend, won’t feel out of place.
September 1, 2024
I read this a long time ago and apparently forgot to review it then. Dana Gioia gets it.
October 13, 2024
Not his best collection, but the Underworld sequence is a standout.
February 28, 2025
Short and mighty. Loved parts II, III, and V the most. It's nice to read rhymes that don't feel too forced and are fun to say aloud too.
June 15, 2026
“Time and tide are counting beats” and “The truest words subvert what we intend. They bring no ease. The cost is always more than we can spend.”
February 25, 2025
I found this to be very ‘meh’, though the entire thing was made worth it for me in ‘Words Words Words’, which was a poem on writing, in particular lines 1, 2, and 5:
‘It is the luck to fail at what we started/
…
to hope that once/
the angel came, possessed us, and departed.’
God. Still not over that.
‘It is the luck to fail at what we started/
…
to hope that once/
the angel came, possessed us, and departed.’
God. Still not over that.
March 24, 2024
Its was Okaish.
Some poems I liked and others I felt like just went by.
Some poems I liked and others I felt like just went by.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews