UA’s Bankhead Visiting Writers Series Welcomes Former Poet Laureate Robert Hass

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – America’s Poet Laureate from 1995-1997, Robert Hass, will be on The University of Alabama campus for a poetry reading as part of the Bankhead Visiting Writers Series.

Fans of Hass’ poetry have eagerly anticipated his reading on April 24 at 8 p.m. in the Bryant Conference Center. The event is free and open to the public. Originally, he was scheduled to read elsewhere on campus. His books of poetry include “Field Guide,” “Praise,” “Human Wishes,” and “Sun Under Wood.” He co-translated several volumes by the Nobel Prize-winning poet Czeslaw Milosz.

He is a prolific editor and has Thomas Transtormer’s “Selected Poems 1954-1986” to his credit, as well as “The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, and Issa” and “Poet’s Choice: Poems for Everyday Life.” In 2001 Hass served as guest editor of the book “Best American Poetry.”

Hass has twice been the recipient of the national Book Critics Circle Award (1984 and 1997), was granted a MacArthur Fellowship (1984) and he won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize (1973).

Hass founded River Words, an organization that promotes environmental and arts education in affiliation with The Library of Congress Center for the Book. He currently is a professor of English at the University of California at Berkeley. In addition to his reading, he will lecture in 301 Morgan Hall at noon on Friday, April 25.

The Bankhead Visiting Writers Series is made possible by an endowment from the Bankhead Foundation, The University of Alabama’s Program in Creative Writing, the department of English and the College of Arts and Sciences. For more information, please contact UA’s creative writing program at 205/348-0766 or visit www.bama.ua.edu/~writing.