Arthur Sze

Arthur Sze (English: /ˈziː/; Chinese: 施家彰; pinyin: Shī Jiāzhāng; born December 1, 1950) is an American poet, translator, editor, and professor. Since 1972, he has published twelve collections of poetry. Sze's books include Into the Hush (Copper Canyon, 2025), The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems (Copper Canyon, 2021), which received a 2024 National Book Foundation Science and Literature Award. His tenth collection Sight Lines won the 2019 National Book Award for Poetry, and his ninth collection Compass Rose (2014) was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. His previous books include The Ginkgo Light (Copper Canyon, 2009), selected for the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association Book Award in Poetry and a PEN Southwest Book Award, Quipu (Copper Canyon, 2005); The Redshifting Web: Poems 1970-1998 (Copper Canyon, 1998), selected for the Balcones Poetry Prize and an Asian American Literary Award; and Archipelago (Copper Canyon, 1995), selected for an American Book Award.

Arthur Sze
Sze in 2024
Born	(1950-12-01) December 1, 1950 (age 74) New York, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Poet translator writer professor
Language	English, Chinese
Education	Massachusetts Institute of Technology University of California, Berkeley (BA)
Genre	Poetry
Years active	1972–present
Notable works	Compass Rose (2014) Sight Lines (2019)
Notable awards	National Book Award for Poetry (2019)
Spouse	Carol Moldaw
Children	2

Sze was the first Poet Laureate of Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he resides and is a professor emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

Early life and education

Sze is a second-generation Chinese American, born in New York City on December 1, 1950.^[1] He was raised in Queens and Garden City on Long Island.^[2][1] Sze graduated from the Lawrenceville School in 1968. Between 1968 and 1970, Sze attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1970, he transferred to the University of California, Berkeley to pursue poetry.^[1] In 1972, he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and received his BA from the University of California, Berkeley, with a self-directed major in poetry.

Career

His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, The Atlantic, Boston Review, Conjunctions, Harper's Magazine,The Kenyon Review, The Nation, The New Republic, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review, Poetry, the Virginia Quarterly Review and The Yale Review Online,^[3] and have been translated into fifteen languages,including Chinese, Dutch, German, Korean, and Portuguese. He has authored twelve books of poetry, including Into the Hush (Copper Canyon Press, 2025), The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2021), Compass Rose (Copper Canyon Press, 2014). This latter volume was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.^[4]

He has been included in six Best American Poetry anthologies, four Pushcart Prize anthologies, as well as Articulations: The Body and Illness in Poetry (University of Iowa Press, 1994), Premonitions: The Kaya Anthology of New Asian North American Poetry, (Kaya Production, 1995), I Feel a Little Jumpy around You (Simon & Schuster, 1996), What Book!?: Buddhist Poems from Beats to Hiphop (Parallax Press 1998), and American Alphabets (Oberlin College Press, 2006).

He was the 2023-2024 Mohr Visiting Poet at Stanford University, a Visiting Hurst Professor at Washington University in St. Louis, a Doenges Visiting Artist at Mary Baldwin College, and has conducted residencies at Brown University, Bard College, and Naropa University. He is a professor emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts, is the first poet laureate of Santa Fe and has won five grants from the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry.^{[citation needed]}

In 2012, Sze was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.^[5] In 2017, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Reception

The poet Jackson Mac Low has said: "The word 'compassion' is much overused, 'clarity' less so, but Arthur Sze is truly a poet of clarity and compassion." Albuquerque Journal reviewer John Tritica: commented that Sze "resides somewhere in the intersection of Taoist contemplation, Zen rock gardens and postmodern experimentation." Critic R.W. French notes that Sze's poems "are complex in thought and perception; in language, however, they have the cool clarity of porcelain. The surface is calm, while the depths are resonant. There is about these poems a sense of inevitability, as though they could not possibly be other than what they are. They move precisely through their patterns like a dancer, guided by the discipline that controls and inspires."^[6]

Personal life

Sze he lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico with his wife, Carol Moldaw, and their daughter.^[7] Sze also has a son from a previous marriage.^[2]

Awards

• 2025 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry for Lifetime Achievement from Yale University
• 2024 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Library of Congress
• 2024 National Book Foundation Science & Literature Award
• 2022 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Foundation
• 2021 The Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America
• Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award
• Guggenheim Fellowship,^[8]
• American Book Award
• Lannan Literary Award for Poetry,^[9]
• Two National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing fellowships
• George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation Fellowship
• Western States Book Award for Translation.
• Jackson Poetry Prize, 2013 (awarded by Poets & Writers)^[10]
• National Book Award for Poetry, 2019^[11]

Bibliography

Poetry

Collections

• The Willow Wind. Berkeley, California: Rainbow Zenith Press. 1972.
  • The Willow Wind: Poems and Translations from the Chinese (Revised ed.). Santa Fe, New Mexico: Tooth of Time Books. 1981.
• Two Ravens. Guadalupita, New Mexico: Tooth of Time Publications. 1976.
  • Two Ravens: Poems and Translations from the Chinese (Revised ed.). Santa Fe, New Mexico: Tooth of Time Books. 1984. ISBN 978-0-940510-09-8.
• Dazzled. Point Reyes Station, California: Floating Island Publications. 1982. ISBN 978-0-912449-07-4.
• River River. Providence, Rhode Island: Lost Roads Publishers. 1987. ISBN 978-0-918786-35-7.
• Archipelago. Port Townsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press. 1995. ISBN 9781556591006.
• The Redshifting Web: Poems 1970–1998. Port Townsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press. 1998. ISBN 9781556590887.
• Quipu. Port Townsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press. 2005. ISBN 9781556592263.
• The Ginkgo Light. Port Townsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press. 2009. ISBN 9781556592997.
• Compass Rose. Port Townsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press. 2014. ISBN 9781556594670.
• Sight Lines. Port Townsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press. 2019. ISBN 978-1-55659-559-2.
• Starlight Behind Daylight. Afton, Virginia: St Brigid Press. 2020.^[12]
• The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2021)
• The White Orchard: Selected Interviews, Essays, and Poems (Museum of New Mexico Press, 2025)
• Into the Hush (Copper Canyon Press, 2025)

Translations

• The Silk Dragon: Translations of Chinese Poetry. Port Townsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press. 2001. ISBN 978-1-55659-153-2.
• The Silk Dragon II: Translations of Chinese Poetry (Copper Canyon Press, 2024)

In anthology

• Tuckey, Melissa, ed. (2018). "After a New Moon". Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-5315-9.

As editor

• Chinese Writers on Writing. Ed. Arthur Sze. (Trinity University Press, 2010).