Robert Hass, on translations, haiku and poetry

In this 1996 edition of The Writing Life, Roland Flint, then serving as Maryland Poet Laureate, interviews Robert Hass, the new National Poet Laureate about translating poetry, writing haiku and commuting between Washington, D.C., and California (Hass has written taxicab sonnets, he says). Hass has translated the work of Czeslaw Milosz and Japanese haiku. He reads "The Church Yard and "A Story about the Body." Hass then reads Milosz's poem "A Confession" that he translated from the Polish. Hass also speaks of the history of haiku, and the form's "amazing clarity." He reads several haikus in quick succession to show the affect. His works include "In the Garden: A Wedding Anthology of Poetry and Prose" and "The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Busan and Issa."
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