September 25, 2001
Contact: Roman Baratiak
(805) 893-2078
e-mail: baratiak-r@sa.ucsb.edu

Noted poets Robert Hass and Brenda Hillman
to read their work at UCSB

Summary Facts:

• Award winning poets Robert Hass and Brenda Hillman
• Writers’ reading: “An Evening of Poetry”
• Hass is a former U.S. Poet Laureate
• Hillman has won both a Guggenheim and a NEA grant for her work
• Friday, November 2
• 8 pm / UCSB Campbell Hall
• UCSB students $5 / General public $6
• For information and tickets: UCSB Arts & Lectures at 893-3535

Highly acclaimed poets Robert Hass and Brenda Hillman will read from their work on Friday, November 2 at 8 pm in UCSB Campbell Hall. Hass was Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995-1997, an honorary post that he took quite seriously as a bully-pulpit from which he fought illiteracy and championed writing and the environment. In the arc of her six books, Hillman’s poetry has moved from lyricism to Gnosticism and experimentation, garnering her positive reviews and a National Book Critics’ Circle Award nomination. This will be a rare joint reading for this married couple that attests to Hass’ claim that poetry comes from the “pure activity of being consciously alive.”

Hass, a recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, has published four volumes of poetry, most recently Sun Under Wood, which was nominated for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics’ Circle Award. His debut collection, Field Guide, won the Yale Younger Poets award in 1973. His second book, Praise, contains the poem “Meditation at Lagunitas,” often considered one of the best poems of the previous century. His third volume, Human Wishes, led poet Carolyn Kizer to write in The New York Times Book Review: “Robert Hass is so intelligent that to read his poetry or prose, or to hear him speak, gives one an almost visceral pleasure.”

Hass is also the author of two lauded collections of nonfiction, Twentieth Century Pleasures: Prose on Poetry, which won the 1984 National Book Critics’ Circle Award for Criticism, and An Unnamed Flowing: The Cultures of American Poetry. He has translated widely, especially the work of Nobel Prize winner Czeslaw Milosz and the haiku of Basho, Buson and Issa. He teaches at the University of California at Berkeley.

Brenda Hillman is the author of six volumes of poetry, including the recently published Cascadia. Named for the ancient landform that preceded present-day California, the book uses geology as a basis for a poetics and also includes short lyrics inspired by the California missions. Her work has been praised for its “unique power and persuasive passion” by The Nation, and has earned her numerous fellowships and the Delmore Schwarz Memorial Award for Poetry. She teaches at St. Mary’s College in Moraga, CA.

Robert Hass and Brenda Hillman are Distinguished Visiting Fellows in the UCSB College of Creative Studies. Their “Evening of Poetry” is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures and the College of Creative Studies. Courtesy of the UCSB Bookstore, books by both writers will be available for purchase and signing at the event.

For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.

Editor: For photos, please call
Roman Baratiak at (805) 893-2078.