Arthur Sze

Arthur Sze
Born	(1950-12-01) December 1, 1950 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

Arthur Sze (English: /ˈziː/; Chinese: 施家彰; pinyin: Shī Jiāzhāng; born December 1, 1950) is an American poet, translator, and professor. Since 1972, he has published ten collections of poetry. Sze's ninth collection Compass Rose (2014) was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Sze's tenth collection Sight Lines (2019) won the 2019 National Book Award for Poetry.

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. His parents initially immigrated to the United States following the Japanese occupation of China, and remained in the U.S. after the Chinese Civil War reignited. He was raised in Queens and Garden City on Long Island. 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.

Career

His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Conjunctions, The Kenyon Review, Mānoa, The Paris Review, The New Yorker, and the Virginia Quarterly Review, and have been translated into Albanian, Chinese, Dutch, Italian, Romanian, Turkish and Portuguese. He has authored eight books of poetry, including Compass Rose (Copper Canyon Press, 2014). This latter volume was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

He has been included in anthologies such 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 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 three grants from the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry.

In 2012, Sze was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

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."

Personal life

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

Awards

• Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award
• Guggenheim Fellowship,
• American Book Award
• Lannan Literary Award for Poetry,
• 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)
• National Book Award for Poetry, 2019

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.

Translations

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

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).

External links

• Profile at the Poetry Foundation
• Profile and poems at Poets.org
• "An E-view with Arthur Sze", Rebecca Seiferle, The Drunken Boat
• Lunch Poems: Arthur Sze, UCTV, 4-28-08 (30 mins, audio)
• "Add-Verse" a poetry-photo-video project Arthur Sze participated in
• Sze reading at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on 1 April 1997. Video (30 mins)
• "Looking Back on the Muckleshoot Reservation from Galisteo Street, Santa Fe". The New Yorker. May 26, 2008.
• "Aqueous Gold". Boston Review. February–March 2004. Archived from the original on 2009-10-02. Retrieved 2009-05-18.