Arthur Sze

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’. As wise as it is beguiling, Into the Hush reminds me of George Eliot’s ‘roar which lies on the other side of silence’. These poems lead us through the intermeshing worlds of matter and spirit, science and instinct, to touch the beating heart of things. ‘[H]ere is the anvil on which to hammer your days–’: I, for one, am ready to accept the invitation, the challenge.

Sarah Howe, author of Foretokens

[A] bold vision of the world’s fragility: one of unceasing iridescence and glimmer, even in the face of ecological destruction and dilapidation… Even in its continual replenishing beauty, the collection is eerie, as though these poems were a last attempt to bring order to the disorder of living

Gorgeous and powerful... a collection of formal dexterity and profound empathy, which is most deeply felt through Sze’s vivid and precise imagery. Moving through human and non-human perspectives, Sze considers nature, time, and interconnectedness, in elegant and utterly arresting language. I finished this collection with fresh eyes and a renewed love for poetry-reading

Arthur Sze has long been renowned for his constellation of vision and generous imagination – able to hold the aspen leaf and the mountain range, the water droplet and the crashing surf in the same stunning poetic field. 
 
Turning his attention to habitat destruction, language extinction, mortality and so much more, Into the Hush sketches a world slipping into silence, asking what we lose to it, what emerges, and what can be held in its aperture. 
 
Sze draws together a startling array of imagery in these quietly forceful poems that render our complex universe with profound simplicity and clarity. Sze’s lyric voice – which at times inhabits the body of a jaguar and even an eraser – moves between chaos and stillness with supple agility, challenging our notions of traditional poetic forms such as the haibun, zuihitsu, sonnet and pantoum to break open new avenues of expression that speak to our fragmented world. 
 
Attuned to the underlying network that connects all things, Into the Hush charts a thrilling journey from silence into sound, from emptiness into the rich possibilities of existence.

Arthur Sze

Praise for Into the Hush

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’. As wise as it is beguiling, Into the Hush remi ...

[A] bold vision of the world’s fragility: one of unceasing iridescence and glimmer, even in the face of ecological destruction and dilapidation… Even in its continual replenishing beauty, the co ...

Gorgeous and powerful... a collection of formal dexterity and profound empathy, which is most deeply felt through Sze’s vivid and precise imagery. Moving through human and non-human persp ...

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’. As wise as it is beguiling, Into the Hush remi ...

[A] bold vision of the world’s fragility: one of unceasing iridescence and glimmer, even in the face of ecological destruction and dilapidation… Even in its continual replenishing beauty, the co ...

Gorgeous and powerful... a collection of formal dexterity and profound empathy, which is most deeply felt through Sze’s vivid and precise imagery. Moving through human and non-human persp ...

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’. As wise as it is beguiling, Into the Hush remi ...

[A] bold vision of the world’s fragility: one of unceasing iridescence and glimmer, even in the face of ecological destruction and dilapidation… Even in its continual replenishing beauty, the co ...

Gorgeous and powerful... a collection of formal dexterity and profound empathy, which is most deeply felt through Sze’s vivid and precise imagery. Moving through human and non-human persp ...

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