SOURCE: An interview in Chicago Review, Vol. 32, No. 4, Spring, 1981, pp. 17-26.

In the following interview, Remnick questions Hass about his own work in light of his influences.

Do you remember what those early efforts were like?

They were all rhymed imitations of Robert Service or Vachel Lindsay. They were very often narratives about my friends.

Was there a point at which you realized that you didn 't really have to use traditional forms?

I sort of knew that early on. I mean I had seen e.e. cummings in anthologies, but I didn't know how to hear the music of poetry without rhyme until I was in high school. City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco published Allen Ginsberg's Howl around that time. I think the Chief of Police banned...