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Woodrow Wilson News & Publications
FOR RELEASE: Thursday, April 17, 2008
CONTACT: Beverly Sanford
Director of Communications
(609) 452-7007 x181
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WW FELLOW WINS POETRY PULITZER
PRINCETON, N.J.—Former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert L. Hass WF ’63 was awarded a 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry—one of two this year—for Time and Materials: Poems 1997-2005. The same collection also garnered Dr. Hass a National Book Award.
Time and Materials is Dr. Hass’ first book of poetry since he concluded his tenure as Poet Laureate (1995-1997). In the intervening decade, he has also translated the works of Nobel poet Czeslaw Milosz, edited poetry collections such as The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, and Issa and Best American Poetry, and created The Washington Post’s “Poet’s Choice” column.
Dr. Hass, a professor of English at the University of California-Berkeley, has won numerous awards beginning with his first book of poetry, Field Guide (1973), selected by Stanley Kunitz for the Yale Younger Poets Series. He has received two National Book Critics Circle Awards—the first for a book of essays, Twentieth Century Pleasures: Prose on Poetry (1984), and the second for his poetry collection Sun Under Wood (1996).
A MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellow, Dr. Hass was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2005 and recently concluded a term as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. While Poet Laureate, he also co-founded River of Words (ROW), a nonprofit organization that he continues to co-chair. ROW promotes environmental and arts education and holds an annual international environmental poetry and art contest for youth.
Established in 1922, the Pulitzer Prize for poetry is awarded “for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author.” Dr. Hass is the 15th Pulitzer winner among Fellows of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation.
The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation identifies and develops the best minds for the nation’s most important challenges. In these areas of challenge, the Foundation awards fellowships to enrich human resources, works to improve public policy, and assists organizations and institutions in enhancing practice in the U.S. and abroad.
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