Arthur Sze Books in Order

Inspired by the Zen garden at Ryōan-ji, these fifteen poems draw connections between Buddhist and Native American art and culture. Individual images and meditations gain meaning through their relationships, exploring the interdependence of perception, creativity, and spiritual life.

Taking the Inca system of knotted recording cords as a central image, Sze connects experiences across cultures and time. These poems move between grief and celebration, gathering the details of contemporary life into patterns of fragile meaning.

A ginkgo tree that survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima becomes an image of persistence in this collection. Sze connects ordinary observations with historical and natural wonders, exploring how moments of renewal endure alongside destruction.

Drawing on more than twenty-five years of writing, Sze brings new poems together with selections from five earlier books. Unexpected combinations of images reveal connections among objects, experiences, and ideas through carefully shaped sound and rhythm.

Sze moves among children’s games, everyday objects, funeral rituals, and war, bringing distant experiences into relation. These poems explore a world seen from multiple positions, using sensory detail to discover correspondences across ordinary life and wider events.

Moving across history and geography, these poems connect unexpected voices and images, from water calligraphy to nuclear weapons work. Sze explores humanity’s threats to the planet while discovering moments of beauty and significance within daily experience.

Bringing together ten collections and new poems, this volume traces five decades of Sze’s work. His evolving forms connect cultural traditions, sharply observed details, and concern for the planet, exploring the many ways human experience can be perceived.

These poems confront climate change, endangered cultures, and the nuclear age through varied forms and unexpected voices. Sze moves between silence and sound, pairing intimate observations with global dangers to explore life on a threatened planet.

Sze guides readers through poetry from different cultures and centuries, comparing translations and exploring the creative choices behind them. His discussions encourage readers to experiment with translation and discover how reading can become an imaginative act.