SOURCE: "Robert Hass Is Named Poet Laureate," in The New York Times, May 8, 1995, pp. C11, C15.

[In the following article, Grimes announces Hass's appointment as Poet Laureate and comments on Hass's career.]

Robert Hass has been named the poet laureate of the United States by James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress. Mr. Hass, the author of the poetry collections Field Guide, Praise and Human Wishes, succeeds Rita Dove, whose second one-year term as poet laureate ends this month.

"It's a daunting honor," said Mr. Hass (whose name rhymes with grass), in a telephone interview from the University of Iowa in Iowa City, where he is teaching at the Iowa Writers Workshop for the spring semester. "On the one hand, I'm quite pleased, and on the other I'm fearful of the distraction. I think Joseph Brodsky said that the job is ill-paid, ill-defined and irresistible." Mr. Brodsky was...