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xiv, [2], 140, [4] pages. Color frontis illustration. Signed on half-title page. Slipcase has slight wear and soiling. Dr. Samuel John Hazo (born 19 July 1928) is a poet, playwright, fiction novelist, 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 was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to refugee parents, a Lebanese mother and an Assyrian father from Jerusalem. Hazo first began writing poems during his time as an undergraduate student at the University of Notre Dame, where he originally studied law before switching to English. His first few works were written at times of random inspiration or specifically for the purpose of being recognized in literary magazines. It was not until his time as a captain in the United States Marine Corps during the time of the Korean War that he began to look back at his previous work as well as reflect on his life - a pivotal point for his work. Themes that became much more apparent in his work after that point mainly include things that Hazo considered relevant to his own life: family, Christianity, war, suffering, the absurdities of life, and the mystery of death. Some of his published works include Inscripts, 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. Hazo also wrote "When the Evening Gets Down to Cigars" for the Pittsburgh-based cigar-friendly men's club, Rascals, Rogues, and Rapscallions. Hazo's founded the International Poetry Forum. For 43 years under Hazo's direction, the International Poetry Forum brought numerous poets to Pittsburgh in order to "demonstrate the relevance and centrality of poetry to the general public through the oral presentation of poetry". Hazo received a Phi Beta Kappa Honorary Membership (1976), the Hazlett Award for Excellence in Literature (1986), the Forbes Medal for Outstanding Cultural Contributions to Western Pennsylvania (1987), the Pittsburgh Centre for the Arts Cultural Award (1995), the Elizabeth Kray Award for Outstanding Service to Poetry from New York University, and twelve honorary doctorates. For his 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. In 2004, he was 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. Limited Edition if 145 copies of which 45 are artists' copies. This copy is A.P. signed by Thomas C. Pears III on limitation page. Signed by author.
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