Arthur Sze Is the New U.S. Poet Laureate

The Library of Congress announced this week that Arthur Sze, 74, will be the next Poet Laureate of the United States.

The NY Times describes Sze as an observational poet, whose work is grounded in nature and imagery. He said he first learned his craft by translating ancient Chinese poems. Over time, his poems grew longer, often made up of numbered sequences that changed perspective and tone from one section to another. His newer poems look simpler, but hopefully, he said, they are deeper.

“When you read a poem, you don’t need to feel like you get it all at once,” Sze said. “The best poems communicate through sound and rhythm and musicality. And as you read and reread, the poem emerges.”

Born in New York City to immigrants from China (his father had a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from M.I.T.), he has lived most of his life in New Mexico, where he taught at the Institute of American Indian Arts for more than two decades. As poet laureate, he said he plans to focus on poetry that has been translated into English from other languages.

His latest poetry collection - his 12th -  is Into the Hush.

Poet Laureate | Poetry & Literature | Programs | Library of Congress

View Resource Guide on Arthur Sze

News Release: Library of Congress Names Arthur Sze the Nation's 25th U.S. Poet Laureate

Arthur Sze | The Poetry Foundation

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At the End of Summer

It is not really the end of summer. In 2025, the autumnal equinox will occur on Monday, September 22 to make it astronomically official. But it does feel like the end of summer seeing students returning to classes, and a few signs of autumn appearing in nature.

Here is the first section of Jane Kenyon's  "Three Songs at the End of Summer"

A second crop of hay lies cut
and turned. Five gleaming crows
search and peck between the rows.
They make a low, companionable squawk,
and like midwives and undertakers
possess a weird authority.

Crickets leap from the stubble,
parting before me like the Red Sea.
The garden sprawls and spoils.

Across the lake the campers have learned
to water ski. They have, or they haven’t.
Sounds of the instructor’s megaphone
suffuse the hazy air. “Relax! Relax!”

Cloud shadows rush over drying hay,
fences, dusty lane, and railroad ravine.
The first yellowing fronds of goldenrod
brighten the margins of the woods.

Schoolbooks, carpools, pleated skirts;
water, silver-still, and a vee of geese."

by Jane Kenyon  -  read the full "Three Songs at the End of Summer" from Poetry

 

 

Though this is not hay, but a Wheatfield With Crows, one of Van Gogh's most famous paintings, it feels right for this time of year. It has often been claimed that this was his final work, and that the dead-end path and the threatening sky with crows heralded his approaching death. That symbolic interpretation is a persistent myth unsupported by concrete evidence.

Image: Vincent van Gogh, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Art of the Wasted Day

A fellow poet let me know that there was an article in The Paris Review back in 2018 titled "I Have Wasted My Life," which also makes a connection to James Wright's poem, as I did for our September 2025 call for submissions. It is possible that I read that article at some point, but I don't recall it. I read it now. The connection is even more direct to Phillis Levin's poem that we used for that prompt.

The article is by Patricia Hampl, the author of six prose works, including A Romantic Education and The Florist's Daughter. She is also the author of The Art of the Wasted Day.

The book is described as "a spirited inquiry into the lost value of leisure and daydream." In other words, wasted days are not wasted days. 

The book begins with two eighteenth-century Irish ladies who ran off to live a life of "retirement" in rural Wales. Then she travels to Moravia to consider the famous monk-geneticist, Gregor Mendel. But her main hero of wasted days is Michel Montaigne. He retreated from court life to sit in his chateau tower and write about whatever passed through his mind. In wasting his time in this way, he invented the personal essay. He would certainly be a blogger had he lived in our times.

Hampl also considers her own life and the ways she has "wasted" days - childhood days lazing under a tree, a daydreaming fascination with having a monastic life, and love and the loss of love. 

The real job of being human, Hampl decides, is getting lost in thought, something only leisure can provide. The Art of the Wasted Day is a celebration of the purpose and appeal of letting go.

Though our prompt and model poems seemed to lean towards a sadness about wasted time, Hampl reminds us that wasting time can be useful, even fruitful.

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To see our past prompts and more than 300 issues,
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Prompt: Wasted Time

There are certain times when you self-assess how you have spent your time. Before you sleep, you might think about what you did that day. Have you wasted another day? Birthdays might prompt you to assess the past year. The deaths of friends and loved ones might have you consider your entire life.

Our two model poems for this call for submissions are "Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota" by James Wright, and "May Day" by Phillis Levin. Both poems consider the idea of a "wasted life." 

Wright's poem lures the reader into a serene, almost hypnotic pastoral scene. There are butterflies, cowbells, and late-afternoon light. Then it culminates in a jarring, introspective conclusion: “I have wasted my life.” That jump-cut shift forces reflection and probably some debate among readers. Is it a regretful lament? Perhaps it is a subtle existential epiphany.  

"May Day" is lyrical and metaphysical, and also filled with lush, sensory imagery. But Levin doesn't trip us up at the end. She tells us up front: “I’ve decided to waste my life.” Beneath its surface beauty is something profound and maybe daring. I've been told by others that this is "an assertion of intention wrapped in restraint" and that the motif suggests both surrender and renewal. She does close with a turn, like Wright, but a more hopeful one: "You must change your life."

I was discussing this prompt over coffee with my poet friend Susan Rothbard, and she remembered that in the poem “Archaic Torso of Apollo” by Rainer Maria Rilke, the poet describes a ruined statue that still radiates vitality. His final imperative to the reader is “You must change your life.” Probably an inspiration for Wright’s and Levin’s poems, Rilke stages a sudden volta (turn) at the end, where description gives way to existential command.

For our October issue, we are seeking poems that explore the concept of time wasted. It could be a wasted hour, day, season, or life. Perhaps the idea causes someone to change their life. Perhaps it depresses them. Maybe the wasted time is not their own.

Deadline for the October issue is September 30, 2025. Don't waste time thinking about the poem and not writing it. 

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Follow this blog for all things poetry.
To see our past prompts and more than 300 issues,
visit our website at poetsonline.org