Robert Hass
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Robert L. Hass (b. March 1, 1941) is a Pulitzer Prize winning American poet. He served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997. [1] He was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for "Time and Materials."

Contents

Life

Born in San Francisco, Hass is a California poet whose works are well-known for their West Coast subject and attitude. He grew up with an alcoholic mother and it was his older brother who encouraged him to dedicate himself to his writing. (His mother's alcoholism was a major topic in the 1996 poem collection, Sun Under Wood). Awe-struck by Gary Snyder and Allen Ginsberg, among others in the 1950s Bay Area poetry scene, Hass entertained the idea of becoming a beatnik. Hass graduated from Marin Catholic High School in 1958. Hass was interested when the area became influenced by East Asian literary techniques, such as haiku.

Hass is currently married to the poet and antiwar activist Brenda Hillman, who teaches at St. Mary's College.

Career

Hass graduated from St. Mary's College in Moraga, California in 1963, and received his MA and Ph.D. in English from Stanford University in 1965 and 1971 respectively. At Stanford he studied with the poet and critic Yvor Winters, whose ideas influenced his later writing and thinking. His Stanford classmates included the poets Robert Pinsky, John Matthias, and James McMichael. Hass taught literature and writing at the University at Buffalo in 1967. From 1971 to 1989, he taught at his alma mater St. Mary's, at which time he transferred to the faculty of University of California, Berkeley. He as been a visiting faculty member in the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop on several occasions.

From 1995-1997, during Hass's two terms as the US Poet Laureate (Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress), he became a well-known champion of literacy, poetry, and ecological awareness. He criss-crossed the country lecturing in places as diverse as corporate boardrooms and for civic groups, or as he has said, "places where poets don't go." Since his self-described "act of citizenship," he has written a weekly column on poetry in the Washington Post. He serves as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, is a trustee of the Griffin Poetry Prize, and works actively for literacy and the environment.

Hass says that he admires beat poet Lew Welch's short poem "Raid Kills Bugs Dead". He commented in an archived online chat that "It's to the point." In Hass' opinion, the five most important poets of the last 50 years were Chilean Pablo Neruda, Peruvian Cesar Vallejo, and Polish poets Zbigniew Herbert, Nobel-winner Wislawa Szymborska, and Nobel-winner Czesław Miłosz.

While at Berkeley, Hass has translated the poetry of his fellow Berkeley professor and neighbor Czesław Miłosz as part of a team with Robert Pinsky and Miłosz.

In 1999, Hass appeared in Wildflowers, the debut film by director Melissa Painter. In the film, Hass plays The Poet, a writer who is dying of an unnamed chronic illness. Excerpts from his poetry are included in the script, primarily read by Hass and by actress Darryl Hannah.

Published works

Poetry

Critical works

  • "James Wright", Robert Hass, in The Pure Clear Word: Essays on the poetry of James Wright, Dave Smith (editor), Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982, ISBN 0-252-00876-6
  • Twentieth Century Pleasures: prose on poetry, Robert Hass, New York: Ecco Press, 1984, ISBN 0-88001-045-2
  • "Edward Taylor: What was he up to?", Robert Hass, in Green Thoughts, Green Shades: Essays by contemporary poets on the early modern lyric, Jonathan F. S. Post (editor), Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002, ISBN 0-520-21455-2

Translations

  • The Separate Notebooks, Czesław Miłosz (translated by Robert Hass and Robert Pinsky with the author and Renata Gorczynski), New York: Ecco Press, 1984, ISBN 0-88001-031-2
  • Unattainable Earth, Czesław Miłosz (translated by author and Robert Hass), New York: Ecco Press, 1986, ISBN 0-88001-098-3
  • Provinces, Czesław Miłosz (translated by author and Robert Hass), Hopewell, NJ: Ecco Press, 1991, ISBN 0-88001-321-4
  • The Essential Haiku: Versions of Bashō, Buson, and Issa, Bashō Matsuo, Buson Yosano, Issa Kobayashi (edited with verse translation by Robert Hass), Hopewell, NJ: Ecco Press, 1994, ISBN 0-88001-372-9
  • Facing the River: new poems, Czesław Miłosz (translated by author and Robert Hass), Hopewell, NJ: Ecco Press, 1995, ISBN 0-88001-404-0
  • Road-Side Dog, Czesław Miłosz (translated by author and Robert Hass), New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998, ISBN 0-374-25129-0
  • Treatise on Poetry, Czesław Miłosz (translated by author and Robert Hass), New York: Ecco Press, 2001, ISBN 0-06-018524-4
  • Second Space: new poems, Czesław Miłosz (translated by author and Robert Hass), New York: Ecco Press, 2004, ISBN 0-06-074566-5

Awards

External links
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