Poets & Writers Theater

“Poetry is our essential language, and it is as essential to me as breathing.” In this Library of Congress event, Arthur Sze accepts the 2024 Rebekah Bobbitt Johnson National Prize for Poetry for Lifetime Achievement, reads several poems from his career, and talks about his formal exploration of poetics in a conversation with Rob Casper.

In this 2023 Lannan Foundation event celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Copper Canyon Press, Paisley Rekdal presents her hybrid collection, West: A Translation, and Jericho Brown, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning collection, The Tradition, reads a selection of poems, followed by a conversation with Arthur Sze and the press’s editor in chief Michael Wiegers.

“When you think you’re getting good, be humble. There’s no end to the learning.” In this video, Arthur Sze visits his high school, the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, and offers advice from his years of experience as a poet. Sze is the recipient of the 2013 Jackson Poetry Prize and won the 2019 National Book Award in poetry for his collection Sight Lines (Copper Canyon Press, 2019).

“Revelation never comes as a fern uncoiling / a frond in mist; it comes when I trip on a root, / slap a mosquito on my arm,” reads Arthur Sze from his poem "Earthshine" in this 2008 video for the Lunch Poems reading series at the University of California, Berkeley. Sze’s latest collection, The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2021), is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this Asian American Writers’ Workshop video, Arthur Sze reads and discusses the origin of his poem “Winter Stars,” featured in The Best American Poetry 2020 anthology guest edited by Paisley Rekdal. Sze won the 2019 National Book Award in poetry for his collection Sight Lines (Copper Canyon Press, 2019).

“Ginkgo, cottonwood, pin oak, sweet gum, tulip tree: / our emotions resemble leaves and alive / to their shapes we are nourished.” Arthur Sze reads his poem “The Shapes of Leaves” for Dear Poet, an educational project for the Academy of American Poets.

"For me, translation is, in a way, the most intimate form of reading, the most concentrated form, and it's also vital to my process of creation." At the Academy of American Poets' 2014 Poets Forum, Arthur Sze speaks about how translation has influenced his work as a poet and reads from two Chinese poets—one classical and one contemporary.