The Glass Constellation

Arthur Sze is a treasure and a beacon of a poet, whose indispensable body of work offers no less than ‘a way to navigate this world’. These poems lead us through the intermeshing worlds of matter and spirit, science and instinct, to touch the beating heart of things -- Sarah Howe, author of Foretokens
Arthur Sze's writing is breathtaking in its scope and crystalline in its precision, marrying the infinitesimal with the infinite. Reading Sze's poems is a rejuvenating act which "quicken[s] the living to the living", offering a masterclass in the art of paying attention to the miraculousness of being alive -- Mary Jean Chan, author of Bright Fear
Praise for Arthur Sze * - *
One of our best poets -- Charles Simic
Inside these poems of billowing consciousness, we too are alive to a spectrum of wonders * New York Times *
[A] bold vision of the world’s fragility: one of unceasing iridescence and glimmer, even in the face of ecological destruction and dilapidation -- Oluwaseun Olayiwola * Guardian *
This book is an overwhelming feast, a treasure, and more than enough proof that Sze is a major poet -- Craig Morgan Teicher * NPR *
Moving through human and non-human perspectives, Sze considers nature, time, and interconnectedness, in elegant and utterly arresting language -- Megan Robson * Poetry Book Society *
The sureness of Sze’s language and the clarity of his eye present a compelling picture of the world * Publishers Weekly *
[Sze] brings together disparate realms of experience - astronomy, botany, anthropology, Taoism-and observes their correspondences with an exuberant attentiveness * New Yorker *
Sze is a deeply philosophical word scientist; every increment of livingness has weight: history, experience, and sound. The lines move between the microscopic and the cosmic. The poem is a universe of unexpected juxtapositions—a droplet, a lichen, a bird, to create a fresh world -- Bollingen Prize Judges 2025
[Arthur Sze] uses capacious intelligence and lyrical power to offer a dazzling picture of our interconnected world -- Pulitzer Prize Judges 2015