Samuel Hazo is a lifelong Pittsburgher, a finalist for the National Book Award, and Pennsylvania’s first Poet Laureate. In this episode, Samuel describes his earliest memories of Pittsburgh, what it was like growing up in Squirrel Hill and East Liberty (where he was a Cub Scout), and attending Notre Dame in the 1940s. He also shares his memories of running the International Poetry Forum and tells Elise about the people he brought to Pittsburgh for poetry readings, including Grace Kelly and Gregory Peck.

• His introduction to “cosmopolitan Catholicism”

• Poetry as a part of public life

• His time in the marines

• The importance of memory

• His work at the International Poetry Forum

• His memories of Grace Kelly

• Love and risk

• How to bring poetry to the public

Links:
Samuel Hazo’s website
Piers Plowman
The Divine Comedy
Chaucer
Christopher Dawson
Francois Mauriac
“The Poem” by W.S. Merwin
“One-Liners or Less” by Samuel Hazo
International Poetry Forum
W.H. Auden
Anne Sexton
Gwendolyn Brooks
Seamus Heaney
Billy Collins
Octavio Paz
Naomi Shihab Nye
W.S. Merwin
Joyce Carol Oates
Derek Walcott
Linda Pastan
Eugene McCarthy
Grace Kelly (Princess Grace of Monaco)
Richard Pasco
Archibald MacLeish
John Donne
Gregory Peck
William Butler Yeats
Sally Wiggin