NEA Chairman Dana Gioia is about to leave his job to return to his muse: poetry. He joins us to talk about his 6-year run as the man with the deepest pockets in the arts and about the future of government funding for culture.

The National Endowment for the Arts will honor the 2009 NEA Jazz Masters with a concert tomorrow (Oct. 17) at 8 p.m. at Jazz at Lincoln Center. A pre-concert talk with Dana Gioia begins at 6:15. Click here for more information.

Soundcheck blog: The NEA's delicate balancing act.