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American poet
the American poet

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 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. Hass is married to the poet and antiwar activist Brenda Hillman, who is a professor at Saint Mary's College of California.

Hass's poems tend to vary in structure as he alternates between prose like blocks and free verse. His poems have been said to have a stylistic clarity, seen in his simple, clear language and precise imagery. His collection Praise features themes of seasons, nature, location, and transformation, with a running motif of blackberries. Poet Stanley Kunitz said of Hass's work, "Reading a poem by Robert Hass is like stepping into the ocean when the temperature of the water is not much different from that of the air. You scarcely know, until you feel the undertow tug at you, that you have entered into another element." The January 2017 "Gift Horse" episode of the TV series Madam Secretary alludes to Hass. At a presidential inauguration, the poet laureate character ("Roland Hobbs") recites a poem that describes "the privilege of being", an allusion to Hass's 1999 poem of that title.

Hass has been actively engaged in promoting ecoliteracy. In 1995 he began working with writer and environmentalist Pamela Michael on a program that encourages "children to make art and poetry about their watersheds" and fosters interdisciplinary environmental education. In April 1996, when he was poet laureate, he organized a 6 day conference at the Library of Congress that brought together American nature writers to celebrate writing, the natural world and community. On November 9, 2011, while participating in an Occupy movement demonstration at UC Berkeley called Occupy Cal, a police officer hit Hass in the ribs with a baton.