Samuel John Hazo (born 19 July 1928) is a poet, playwright, fiction novelist, and the founder and director emeritus of the International Poetry Forum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Hazo was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1928 to refugee parents, a Lebanese mother and an Assyrian father from Jerusalem.
Their aunt held education in very high regard, and due to its importance, prioritized it when raising the boys.
[3] Hazo first began writing poems during his time as an undergraduate student at the University of Notre Dame, where he originally studied law before switching to English.
A National Book Award Finalist, he was chosen the first poet laureate of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania by Governor Robert Casey in 1993, serving in that capacity until 2003.