From an early age Robert Hass embraced poetry as a vocation. He grew up in the San Francisco Bay area at a time when the poetry community there was the focus of national attention. In a Publishers Weekly interview (28 October 1996) Hass explained to...

Though he has translated the work of Nobel Prize-winning poet Czeslaw Milosz and written a critical book (Twentieth Century Pleasures) that received the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism, it is for his own musical, descriptive,...

Robert Hass, former poet laureate and the first person to write the Poet's Choice column, has published his first book in 10 years. Time and Materials: Poems, 1997-2005 contains a number of brooding, inventive poems that unfold over several pages. Deft variations of approach...

Hass was inspired by the beat poets of his native San Francisco in the 1950s, and won the Yale Younger Poets award for his first book, 'Field Guide,' in 1973. He talks about realism vs metaphor in poetry, celebrity poet culture, and the potential...

Should Christopher Hitchens win a National Book Award, you can be sure he won't thank any higher powers.The author, columnist and commentator was nominated for "God Is Not Great," a polemic with a self-evident theme. Hitchens' book received mixed reviews, but became a best seller...

With the United States fighting an increasingly unpopular war in Iraq, stories of espionage and critiques of foreign policy were winners at the 58th annual National Book Awards.Denis Johnson's "Tree of Smoke," a 600-page journey through the physical, moral and spiritual extremes of the Vietnam...

In the following interview, Hass discusses prose poetry and explains his views on the poet in relation to politics.

[In the following excerpt, Matthias, who is a personal acquaintance of Hass's, presents a thorough analysis of Twentieth Century Pleasures.]

In the following interview, Remnick questions Hass about his own work in light of his influences.