When I finally got Santa Fe-based poet Arthur Sze on the phone, I couldn’t resist asking him how he was feeling in the moment. On the morning of the interview, Sept. 15, Sze was announced as the Library of Congress’ newest poet laureate — the 25th in American history. Sze officially took over from Ada Limón on Oct. 9, and will serve for a one-year term, so I told him I imagined he was feeling pretty sporty.
“I’m swamped,” he said with a hint of humor. And rightly so. The announcement was only a few hours old, but the news had spread far and wide of Sze’s accomplishment. Not that it’s his first. In 1997, Sze was named a Guggenheim Fellow. In 2006, he served as Santa Fe’s poet laureate. In 2015, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer, and he even won the National Book Award in 2019 for his collection Sight Lines. In 2022, he picked up the Ruth Lily Poetry Prize roughly a year after the release of his eleventh book, The Glass Constellation.
“I think a semicolon is a nice way of expressing it,” Sze told SFR at the time about the Ruth Lily Prize. “On the one hand, I’m grateful to receive this award … but I also feel, in addition to the excitement, a strong sense of responsibility to continue to evolve, to continue to grow.”
Becoming a national poet laureate should certainly help in that pursuit, and Sze has already identified his big signature project: a book of various translations of poems hailing from various countries and languages. Despite the swamped-ness, Sze graciously offered a few minutes by phone. This interview was been edited for clarity and concision.
I first need to know if it’s challenging tackling this prestigious position at a time when America is … all the things it currently is?
I certainly feel a responsibility as the U.S. poet laureate, and I want to say the U.S. poet laureate is appointed by the Library of Congress, and that is very meaningful to me — and the position is not political. I’m honored to serve with the Library of Congress to recognize, celebrate and promote the purpose of poetry in our lives, and I’ve chosen to do a poetry in translation signature project.
Is there an impetus to that decision beyond sharing works from other places? Does it go deeper for you than just sharing the work?
I’m going to assemble an anthology of poetry in translation for 13 different languages. That book is going to be called Transient Worlds and is set to be released at the end of my term, April 30, 2026. I’m going to create an unconventional and very personal guide to translation and have 15 different zones … So, for instance, in one zone, I’ll parent the characters to an ancient Chinese poem and show a reader three different translations of the same poem, and then I’m going to invite the reader to make their own translation. The idea is that this is a more hands-on anthology than something like, “Here are 50 poems from a bunch of languages that Arthur likes.” I hope this can be used in high schools and in communities, too, and that it will use translation as a vehicle to deepen and widen the appreciation of poetry in a way that hasn’t been done before.
How do you go about the translations? I assume you don’t speak 15 different languages? Although, maybe you do?
Ha! No, I don’t, but with the Chinese sections, for instance, I can present the Chinese characters and then different translations, and I can talk about how each translator finds something of importance or value that they bring forward. One of the actions or zones I’m going to work with is using four different translations of Sappho — I don’t read any Ancient Greek, but what I can do is compare and contrast the four translations in English and talk about how each translator found something of importance or value to bring forward. I’m not trashing one translation or saying one is terrible or good, I’m picking poems I love and finding translations I admire and using that as a vehicle.
You mention ancient works, is it on your mind to include more contemporary works in the anthology as well?
There are going to be some contemporary works. I have a two-word Navajo poem that is untranslatable, for instance, by a former student named Orlando White. The two words in the poem mean “balance” and “imbalance.” And it’s a visual poem with the two words in Navajo tilted on the page. I don’t read Navajo, but I’m going to talk about … how a poet can use visual aspects, and also even how a language like Navajo, which I don’t know, can still create a poem and a lot of resonance with that poem itself and the translation.
It’s cool you mention a student. Is it also on your mind to elevate young poets?
Yes, absolutely. I’m just starting, but my plan is to put this book together so that it could be used in high schools, colleges, senior centers — in the community. And it’s not just to read and set aside, but also will have certain writing prompts that invite a reader to make a translation of their own. It also invites a reader by saying, “Now write the poem you could only have written after making this translation.” I’m trying to harness the process of working creatively in sound and rhythm where one can explore writing one’s own poetry. I think, oftentimes, anthologies of poetry and good and present a wide spectrum, but if the reader has to stop and write a poem of their own, they have to experience language and deepen their appreciation for poetry in a way that is participatory and hands-on.
I once heard a writer at a talk describe having to read 10 pages for every one he wrote. Do you think people need to read that way in order to create?
Certainly reading translations from other languages can help you discover or explore possibilities through your own writing you hadn’t considered before. One poem, Pablo Neruda’s Sólo la Muerte, is going to have two translations — one is very literal and accurate, but it doesn’t have a lot of life to it; one takes some liberties with the language, so I ‘m going to compare and contrast how both of these translations are valuable. In thinking about how those translators work, and how a writer discovered possibilities not seen before.
Does being from New Mexico or getting work from the area out there enter into your plans? We often get overlooked, but our cultural impacts are many.
Certainly I want to. … Poems from the American Southwest, which I wouldn’t only say is New Mexico, because, for example, most of the Navajo Nation is in Arizona, but there is that sense that New Mexico is often overlooked in terms of national or regional attention, I’ve thought of that.
I know it’s only been about a day since the announcement, but do you think your tenure might have implications for your own work?
I’m not sure yet. This is a big project, so I have to see how it influences my own work. Certainly I’m picking poems I know and love from many different languages, so that’s a lot of fun.