Robert Hass
| Robert Hass | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | March 1, 1941 |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Saint Mary's College of California |
| Genre | poetry |
| Notable works | Time and Materials: Poems 1997-2005.. |
| Notable awards |
Poet Laureate of the United States National Book Award Pulitzer Prize for Poetry MacArthur Fellowship |
| Spouse | Brenda Hillman |
Robert L. Hass (born March 1, 1941) is an American poet. He served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997. He won the 2007 National Book Award and shared the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for the collection Time and Materials: Poems 1997-2005. In 2014 he was awarded the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets.
Hass's works are well known for their West Coast subjects and attitudes. He was born in San Francisco and grew up in San Rafael. He grew up with an alcoholic mother, a major topic in the 1996 poem collection, Sun Under Wood. His older brother encouraged him to dedicate himself to his writing. 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. He graduated from Marin Catholic High School in 1958. When the area became influenced by East Asian literary techniques, such as haiku, Hass took many of these influences up in his poetry. He has been hailed as "a lyrical virtuoso who is able to turn even cooking recipes into poetry".
Hass is married to the poet and antiwar activist Brenda Hillman, who is a professor at Saint Mary's College of California.
Hass graduated from Saint 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 has been a visiting faculty member in the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa on several occasions, and was a panelist at the Workshop's 75th anniversary celebration in June 2011.
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