An interview with poet Laureate Robert Hass

The Beck Writers Series welcomes Pulitzer Prize winner and Poet Laureate Robert Hass for an interview and open discussion.

The Beck Writers Series in partnership with the Vail Series welcome Pulitzer Prize Winner and Poet Laureate Robert Hass. Robert Hass’ work is rooted in the landscapes of his native northern California. In his tenure as U.S. Poet Laureate, Robert Hass spent two years battling American illiteracy armed with the mantra “imagination makes communities.” For Hass, everything is connected. When he works to heighten literacy, he is also working to promote awareness about the environment. Hass has published many books of poetry including “Field Guide,” “Praise,” “Human Wishes” and “Sun Under Wood,” as well as a book of essays on poetry, “Twentieth Century Pleasures.” “Time and Materials,” his 2007 poetry collection, won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. His most recent volume of poetry is “The Apple Trees at Olema: New and Selected Poems.” He recently published a book of essays titled “What Light Can Do: Essays on Art, Imagination, and the Natural World.” Awarded the MacArthur Genius Fellowship, the National Book Critics Circle Award twice (in 1984 and 1997), and the Yale Series of Younger Poets in 1973, Hass is a professor of English at University of California-Berkeley.