"Freedom Is Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose": The Turn in Dana Gioia's Meet Me at the Lighthouse.

This article critically examines Dana Gioia’s poetic trajectory, focusing on his 2023 collection *Meet Me at the Lighthouse* as a pivotal turn in his identity and poetics. Initially celebrated as a leading figure in New Formalism and known for his Catholic faith and formal mastery, Gioia’s earlier work largely obscured his Sicilian and Mexican-American heritage, which only recently has been foregrounded, notably in the corrido-style poem “The Ballad of Jesús Ortiz.” The article highlights how *Meet Me at the Lighthouse* integrates themes of ethnic identity, working-class immigrant history, mortality, and spiritual doubt, marking a shift from Gioia’s earlier “unsaid” poetics toward a more explicit engagement with his mestizo roots and Los Angeles origins. This collection blends formal lyricism with autobiographical and cultural reclamation, reflecting a complex negotiation of ethnicity, faith, and poetic form in contemporary American literature.