Ten Questions for Arthur Sze

“Write one poem at a time and resist knowing where you are going.” —Arthur Sze, author of Into the Hush
Jump to navigation Skip to content
“Write one poem at a time and resist knowing where you are going.” —Arthur Sze, author of Into the Hush
“Editing down is something I dread in the abstract because I know I can lose motivation easily. But this book has ingrained the lesson in me fully.” —Dennis E. Staples, author of Passing Through a Prairie Country
The author of Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird (Norton, 2025) recommends writers embrace circuitous storytelling structures, typical of nonwestern literature.
“The magic happens in the writing, on the page. That’s the high.” —Mariam Rahmani, author of Liquid: A Love Story
“This isn’t writer-stuff, it’s life-stuff that bears on the poems.” —Lesley Wheeler, author of Mycocosmic
“I had many beginnings and several endings, and I tried to arrange the poems in a way that might ask why that was.” —Austin Araujo, author of At the Park on the Edge of the Country
“Because the flip side of uncertainty is an invitation into mystery. And the reward for wading through mystery is transformation.” —Rebe Huntman, author of My Mother in Havana: A Memoir of Magic & Miracle.
“Nothing makes a clunky sentence more obvious than saying it out loud.” —Margie Sarsfield, author of Beta Vulgaris
“If a story gathers force by what it accrues, this kind of ending is a letting go.” —Corinna Vallianatos, author of Origin Stories
“Take your time. And indulge in the messiness, the privacy, the anxieties of the writing process.” —Aria Aber, author of Good Girl