Samuel Hazo - Böcker

For over five decades, Samuel Hazo has taught his readers about literature and life with generosity and awareness, taking everyday experiences and translating them into songs at once familiar and surprising. In his poetry, fiction, essays, and plays, Hazo, in a style that is unmistakably his own, extols the wonderment and discovery that emerge in the act of writing, in the movement toward wisdom that results from the expression of feeling.The Stroke of a Pen is a collection of the occasional essays on a variety of subjects, from the relationship between poetry and public speech, to the pursuit of the literary life, to reading within a cultural context governed by power relations. Two essays focus on religion and literature, and the final five include a literary travel essay on Provence, a counterpointing one on the virtues of not traveling but remaining home, a lighter essay that extends the discussion of home to houses, a memory piece on the actor Gregory Peck, and a personal reflection on the author's retirement. Throughout, Hazo is belletristic in his approach, calling on such writers as T. S. Eliot, Wilfred Owen, Jacques Maritain, and Nathan A. Scott, Jr., who deeply influences Hazo's thinking and writing in this entertaining collection.

For over five decades, Samuel Hazo has taught his readers about literature and life with generosity and awareness, taking everyday experiences and translating them into songs at once familiar and surprising. In his poetry, fiction, essays, and plays, Hazo, in a style that is unmistakably his own, extols the wonderment and discovery that emerge in the act of writing, in the movement toward wisdom that results from the expression of feeling.The Stroke of a Pen is a collection of the occasional essays on a variety of subjects, from the relationship between poetry and public speech, to the pursuit of the literary life, to reading within a cultural context governed by power relations. Two essays focus on religion and literature, and the final five include a literary travel essay on Provence, a counterpointing one on the virtues of not traveling but remaining home, a lighter essay that extends the discussion of home to houses, a memory piece on the actor Gregory Peck, and a personal reflection on the author's retirement. Throughout, Hazo is belletristic in his approach, calling on such writers as T. S. Eliot, Wilfred Owen, Jacques Maritain, and Nathan A. Scott, Jr., who deeply influences Hazo's thinking and writing in this entertaining collection.

The poems in Samuel Hazo’s Sexes: The Marriage Dialogues are concerned with how husbands and wives confront each other at life’s various intersections sometimes casually, sometimes profoundly. It is at these points that the most interesting differences in gender reveal themselves.From the first poem (“Banterers”) to the last (“Ballad of the Old Lovers”) Hazo’s attuned ear picks up quotidian conversational exchanges, but the words are never window dressing. They hint at inevitable insights and misunderstandings born out of conjugal love. Each poem is a vignette of the moving and surprising moments that are married life.

In this work, Hazo casts his eye back upon a career devoted to poetry. With works that are arranged loosely under the themes of love, family, and aging, this volume affirms Hazo’s status as one of the most compelling and enduring poets of his generation. Poems appearing in this collection include works which have appeared in the Hudson Review, Prairie Schooner, the New York Times, and the Saturday Review.

In Hazo’s latest collection, The Less Said, the Truer, he brings together new poems as well as selections from three previous books—They Rule the World (2016), When Not Yet is Now (2019), and The Next Time We Saw Paris (2020). The author’s poignant reflections on life and death, love and loss, and age and memory allow the poems to be deeply personal while also connecting with the everyday experiences of readers. Influenced by America’s incessant wars since 2003 and the militaristic influence they have had on society, Hazo offers insight that disrupts complacency and returns us to our true natures. In keeping with his poetic style, there are no "passenger words" in these poems. Every word counts.