I studied with Robert Hass and learned a lot from him as a teacher. But I learned more, perhaps, from the way he perceives nature and people in his poems. I enjoy falling into a Hass poem, which is what you do...it's not a straight reading experience.

The nature part is easy. Bob has a gift for observation and detail (not unlike Elizabeth Bishop's, in my view). But getting people right in poems is a lot harder.

There's usually a dialogue and plenty of interior thinking, analyzing, self-analyzing. Almost I want to say, like in a Woody Allen film from the late 70s. There is usually a male character and a female. One assumes the former is modeled on the author, but it's hard to tell.

It's autobiography without being solipsistic. Because Hass has almost a novelist's knack for getting into each of his characters, as if there is much of him in each of them or at least he understands them.

Wonderful to have a new book from Bob, because they are so rare. And this is some of his finest work yet. He's never been a poet who gets stuck in a groove for too long, and he continues to challenge himself in this new collection.