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Arab Americans

Samuel John Hazo

Samuel John Hazo

Dr. Samuel John Hazo (born 19 July 1928 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is an author of books, including poetry, fiction, essays and plays, and the founder and director of the International Poetry Forum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is also McAnulty Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at Duquesne University, where he taught for forty-three years. He and his wife, Mary Anne, have one son, Samuel Hazo Jr., who is an accomplished American composer. He is of Lebanese and Assyrian descent.

From 1950 until 1957 Hazo served in the United States Marine Corps, completing his tour as a captain. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude from the University of Notre Dame, and obtained his Master of Arts degree from Duquesne University, as well as a doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh.

Some of his published works include The Holy Surprise of Right Now, Thank a Bored Angel, Jots Before Sleep, and As They Sail (poetry), Stills (fiction), Feather, Mano A Mano, and Watching Fire, Watching Rain (drama), Spying For God (an essay) and The Pittsburgh That Stays Within You (a memoir). His translations include Denis de Rougemont’s The Growl of Deeper Waters, Nadia Tueni’s Lebanon: Twenty Poems For One Love and Adunis’s The Pages of Day And Night.

For his recent collection of poems, Just Once, he received the Maurice English Poetry Award in 2003. A new collection of poems entitled A Flight To Elsewhere was published in 2005, as was a new prose collection entitled The Power of Less: Essays on Poetry And Public Speech. He has been awarded nine honorary doctorates. He was most recently honored with the Griffin Award for Creative Writing from the University of Notre Dame, his alma mater. A National Book Award Finalist, he was chosen the first poet laureate of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania by Governor Robert Casey in 1993, serving in that capacity until 2003.

Source: Wikipedia