Pitt Honors College to Present American Experience Lecture

Pitt’s Honors College will feature prize-winning poet Samuel Hazo in an American Experience Distinguished Lecture titled “The Power of Less: Poetry and Public Speech” at 8 p.m. Feb. 1 in the School of Engineering’s auditorium. Parking is available in the O’Hara Street parking garage.

This will be the first lecture in the American Experience Lecture Series since the January 2006 death of Robert Hazo, founder and director of Pitt’s American Experience program and Samuel Hazo’s brother.

Robert Hazo created the American Experience program 36 years ago to offer the city’s mid- to high-level managers insight into political and economic thought, with the intent of enlightening the public’s political discourse. The series focuses on political and economical issues featuring annual addresses by internationally known speakers. Previous speakers included John Kenneth Galbraith, Pat Buchanan, and Teresa Heinz.

While associate director for the Institute of Philosophical Research, Robert Hazo authored The Idea of Love (Frederick A. Praeger, 1967), the third volume in the Concepts in Western Thought Series.

Poet, essayist, and novelist, Samuel Hazo is founder and director of the International Poetry Forum. He is McAnulty Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at Duquesne University, where he taught for 43 years. He was chosen to be the first State Poet of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania by Governor Robert Casey in 1993 and served in that role until 2003.

Samuel Hazo was a National Book Award finalist for his collection Once for the Last Bandit (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1972).  In 2005, he published a prose collection, The Power of Less: Essays on Poetry and Public Speech (Marquette University Press, 2006), which will be available for purchase at the lecture.

Those interested in attending the Feb. 1 lecture should respond via e-mail at amexp@pitt.edu or by phone at 412-624-6880.

For more information on the American Experience Program, visit www.honorscollege.pitt.edu/ae.