[2] He won the 2007 National Book Award[3] and shared the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry[4] for the collection Time and Materials: Poems 1997–2005.
Awestruck by Gary Snyder and Allen Ginsberg, among others in the 1950s Bay Area poetry scene, Hass entertained the idea of becoming a beatnik.
[7] Hass is married to the poet and antiwar activist Brenda Hillman, who is a professor at Saint Mary's College of California.
[5] Hass graduated from Saint Mary's College in Moraga, California in 1963, and received his MA and Ph.D. in English from Stanford University in 1965 and 1971 respectively.
His collection Praise features themes of seasons, nature, location, and transformation, with a running motif of blackberries.
In 1995 he began working with writer and environmentalist Pamela Michael on a program that encourages "children to make art and poetry about their watersheds" and fosters interdisciplinary environmental education.