Robert Hass served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997 and is currently a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets. His first collection of poems is entitled _Field Guide_.

From: Robert Hass <bobhass@uclink4.berkeley.edu>
Date: Mon Nov 3, 2003 8:43:13 AM US/Pacific
To: smarx@calpoly.edu
Subject: Re: Field Guides

Dear Steven--

...though I had looked at the Cal Poly Guide when you sent it, I didn't really take it in un til this September when I was preparing to teach an introductory environmental studies class I do in the fall here, and was thinking again about getting the Cal students away from their computers and out looking at the natural world. Then I picked up your book and got it. what an amazing thing to have done. It's admirable in every way--as a teaching tool, as a way of drawing on the talents of the faculty to teach in place about responsibility to place, and it's gorgeous. I have since made appointments to show it to the chair of Environmental Science Policy and Management program, to the head of the museum of vertebrate biology here (which might have funds for us to attempt something similar) and the dean of L&S. It's incredibly inspiring and I hope your work will bear some fruit here. so, very belatedly, congratulations and thanks.

Bob