Arthur Sze, the newly appointed U.S. poet laureate, is one of the country’s most celebrated poets, with a body of work that includes a dozen collections, among them Sight Lines (Copper Canyon Press), winner of the National Book Award in 2019, and The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2021), which received the National Book Foundation Science + Literature Award in 2024. He also curated both volumes of The Silk Dragon: Translations From the Chinese, featuring decades of his labor translating a stunning breadth of classical and contemporary Chinese poetry written across two millennia. Sze’s other honors include Yale University’s Bollingen Prize and the Poetry Foundation’s Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, both of which recognize a lifetime of contributions to American poetry. His most recent book is Into the Hush, which was released by Copper Canyon Press in 2025. Shortly after his appointment as poet laureate, Sze spoke about what he hopes to accomplish in the role.
Congratulations, Arthur, on your appointment as poet laureate of the United States. What was your immediate response to receiving this honor?
I was shocked when the Library of Congress called me. It’s a great honor, and I also see it as a position of great responsibility. The role is to “champion poetry” and to raise the appreciation of poetry across the United States.
Because previous poets have been proactive in their capacity as poet laureate, leading various initiatives of their own design, there’s now much anticipation and expectation from the public. How do you hope to balance your personal and artistic commitments with your poet laureate duties?
By pacing myself and by developing a signature project involving poetry and translation that is manageable in scope. It doesn’t make sense to take a scattershot approach and try to read in as many places as possible. I want to treat each poet laureate event with attention and care.
We are living in such a politically divided country. Do you imagine that poetry can be a healer and unifier we so desperately need?
I believe we need poetry now more than ever. We live in such a fast-paced world, and we live in a time when the demands on our attention fragment our inner as well as [our] outer lives. Poetry necessitates that we slow down, deepen our attention, practice care with language and with each other; poetry is an essential language—it’s as necessary as breathing—and it affirms our shared humanity.
In 2006 you began a two-year term as poet laureate of Santa Fe, a place you have called home for decades. What of that city and even of New Mexico are you bringing with you to the role of U.S. poet laureate?
When I became the first poet laureate of the city of Santa Fe, I had to develop the possibilities of that position. There was a requirement to make several public readings during the course of the year, and there was little financial support. Instead of doing solo readings, I decided to reach out to other organizations across the city, and I decided to be one of many readers for themed readings. I curated a poetry reading in the courtyard of the historic Palace of the Governors on the Santa Fe plaza, where five poets read poems inspired by “Sacred Sites” from around the world. … I curated an ecopoetry reading at the Randall Davey Audubon Center & Sanctuary, and I hosted a language forum at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian that included readings of works from Spanish, Tewa, Mayan, and English.
In contrast to the Santa Fe [laureateship], the position of the U.S. poet laureate dates back to 1937, when the role was endowed by the Library of Congress. Many of our nation’s most distinguished poets have served in this role, and many of our poets have designed remarkable signature projects that have served to raise the appreciation of poetry. I will draw on my experience as someone who has lived in New Mexico for over fifty years, as the first poet laureate of Santa Fe, and also as a poet who [worked] for over two decades at the Institute of American Indian Arts and taught students from over two hundred tribes across the United States.
The role of consultant in poetry dates to 1937, but it was legislation authored by Senator Spark M. Matsunaga from Hawaii that changed the title to poet laureate consultant in 1985. He was also responsible for legislation that created the U.S. Institute of Peace, and legislation that led to reparations for Japanese Americans who were detainees during World War II. Does being the first Asian American poet laureate, a title made possible by Matsunaga, add meaning to the position for you?
Yes, it adds meaning to me to be the first Asian American to serve as the U.S. poet laureate. In the past I have worked with and supported such Asian American literary organizations as Kundiman and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, and in addition to developing my signature project involving poetry and translation, I look forward to working with the Asian American communities in whatever ways that I can.
You’ve been a notable advocate and ambassador for translation in American letters. Do you envision that passion shaping your vision for the role of U.S. poet laureate?
I feel a great responsibility to promote the ways poetry, especially poetry in translation, can impact our lives. I’m going to assemble a book designed for use in high schools, colleges, and in communities as a hands-on and personal guide to translating poetry. The book will be called Transient Worlds: On Translating Poetry, and it will feature twenty-three poems drawn from thirteen languages, with the poems first presented in their original languages. The book will be published by Copper Canyon Press in April 2026, and instead of chapters there will be “zones” of discussion.
In the first zone I will present the characters of a Tao Qian poem in Chinese, with words in English under each Chinese character, along with all of the sounds and tones written out. I’ll then present three different translations of the same poem in English, talk about how each translator, including my own translation, found something valuable to “carry over”—“translate”—from Chinese into English. After discussion I will invite readers to make their own translations of this ancient poem into English. In my experience if a reader makes their own translation, it can have a transformational effect. Instead of just reading the words on the page, if a reader makes their own translation, their engagement with language is more creative and their appreciation of poetry deepens.
Zone two will feature a compound two-word poem entirely in Navajo: hózhǫ́—balance—and hóchxọ'—imbalance—written by a former student, Orlando White, where hóchxọ' is written upside down and joined by the [letter] o to create a compound visual poem that is written at an angle. I’ll discuss the poem, the Navajo language, how it centers on the verb “to go” whereas English centers on the verb “to be,” and readers will implicitly be invited to make their own visual poem.
The book will feature poems from Arabic, Braj Bhasha, Chinese, Danish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Navajo, Russian, Spanish, and Tzeltal, along with accompanying translations and discussions. It will show how English, a composite and growing language, has been enriched and strengthened over time by languages from all over the world. As a poet I learned my craft through literary translation. By inviting readers to make their own translations and then write poems that could only have been written after making those translations, I hope to use this book as a vehicle to widen and deepen the appreciation of poetry across the United States.
Speaking to the art of translation, you once stated that any translator is “aware of loss as well as renewal.” How can this observation also become a lesson in learning to navigate today’s concerns?
Translation is intensely humanizing. It makes the ancient contemporary, the foreign accessible, and the emotional, imaginative, and spiritual music of our inner lives universal. Just as poetry communicates through its humanity and brings people together, translation builds bridges and makes community. In one of the later zones in my [forthcoming] book, I invite readers who do not know another language to reach out to a family member, relative, friend, or teacher fluent in another language and choose a poem to translate. With the help of someone fluent in another language, a reader can make a translation of a poem into English. In this process, the more each person gives, the more everyone has. This is instructive for our troubled times.
Rigoberto González is a distinguished professor of English at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey.
Photo credit: Shawn Miller via Library of Congress