Robert Hass

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. 2Life 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 195