You can’t say it any better than a Sam Hazo poem can say it
Hundreds of channels on my TV, and not a one carried red carpet coverage of the Common Wealth Awards of Distinguished Service over the weekend, perhaps because there was no red carpet to speak of.
I would urge the presenters to reconsider, however, because they’ve given this award to people who could red carpet with the best of them: Meryl Streep, Sidney Poitier, James Earl Jones, Glenn Close.
But they’ve also given it to Colin Powell, David McCullough, Walter Cronkite, Annie Leibovitz, and Jonas Salk, and no red carpet correspondent, not even on ‘E’, would turn to Jonas Salk to say, “Who are you wearing?”
These awards, as prestigious as they are light years beyond the orbit of the news cycle, have been around since 1979 as part of a charitable trust created under the will of Ralph Hayes, an Ohio-born entrepreneur and executive with PNC whose intent was to recognize and foster excellence in a range of disciplines — dramatic arts, government, literature, mass communications, public service, science and invention, and sociology.
On Friday, in a ceremony in Wilmington, Del., the 2024 Common Wealth Award in Literature went to my friend Sam Hazo, whose panoply of writings and lifelong passion for teaching have inspired generations of disciples in both professions since about forever.
Squalls of admiration
“It was very gratifying, a lot of hoopla, a lot of hand-shaking, but it’s the kind of thing that throws me off,” Sam told me Monday. “I can’t work or write when I’m surrounded by that kind of flattery.”
One of these days, Sam will learn to maintain his stride during these not-terribly-infrequent squalls of admiration. After all, he’s only 95.
“The contributions you have made in all aspects of Literature, especially as a poet, playwright, novelist, and as founder and director emeritus of the International Poetry Forum, are a testament to your talent and skill as a professor,
writer and scholar,” reads the citation. “Your prolific works, which you are still publishing in your tenth decade, have captivated generations of readers and you have a special gift of always connecting with your audience.”
Poetry being Hazo’s primary groove, he created and curated the poetry forum in this city for more than four decades, attracting and showcasing intellects from Kurt Vonnegut to Brooke Shields (who presented in fluent French), from Seamus Heaney to Princess Grace of Monaco.
His latest collection of poems, “The Less Said, The Truer,” from Syracuse University Press, is still another demonstration of Hazo’s carefully cultivated vision for the art form.
Seeing something in its real nature
“Poetry is the ultimate expression of human feelings,” he said. “You can’t say it any better than a poem can say it, but you don’t find that so often. Poetry is almost absent from our public speech, and it’s the only part of public speech that expresses feelings perfectly when it’s really well done.
“It can happen in a song, or in dance. Anything that’s a poetic
moment, that comes from the imagination, is what allows us to see something in its real nature.”
You can read Hazo’s books and his plays and most particularly his poems (scholars might tell you that’s the way to know him best), but for me it’s been the many essays and treatments this great Pittsburgher has written on education that ring loudest, and truest.
In a commentary for the PostGazette in 1994, which appears in a compilation called “Outspokenly Yours” that’s always within reach of this workspace, Hazo summarized the place of teachers in our culture:
“Recognized or not, rewarded financially or not, these men and women are the defenders of what should become our country. When asked what America stands for, we do not talk about insider trading, chicanery in public life, greed in the marketplace, gangs and driveby shootings, the prolonged juvenilia of many professional athletes or even what is called the two-party system,” he wrote.
“We talk ultimately about those values that are fostered in public and private education. Teachers are the ones who do that fostering. Those who think that this fostering is not primarily important and worthy of sacrifice and support
need only imagine what the country would be like without it.”
Nothing touched Dr. Hazo over his Common Wealth Award weekend more than the appearance of some former students who drove from Pittsburgh to Wilmington, Del., just to see him in the moment.
What excellence is
But he knows we no longer need to imagine a country where the dynamics of education appear to have separated it from its mission.
“My tuition, room, board, and laundry at Notre Dame was $470 in 1945,” he said. “Now it’s $81,000. Who the hell can pay that back except for the very wealthy and people who’ll be in debt indefinitely? This is education for employment as soon as possible, so you can attempt to pay it back, and that results in miserably educated people, especially in political life. If you’re really educated, you have some historical sense of what excellence is.”
Cheers to those who can still recognize it, as they did in Sam Hazo, no matter how far from the red carpet.