Prompt: Personal Transition and Nature

 

I saw that Arthur Sze has been appointed our newest U.S. Poet Laureate. (See "Arthur Sze at the Library of Congress.") That news sent me looking at some of his poetry. The poem I landed on for this call for submissions is "At the Equinox."

The equinox, a moment of equal light and darkness, symbolizes equilibrium and change. Sze uses this celestial event to explore emotional and spiritual transitions. The poem’s structure mirrors this balance—shifting between vivid natural imagery and introspective reflection.

We have published issues here about the solstice and seasons, but this month we aren't really concerned about spring or autumn,as much as about the balance tipping to a change in a life. The change of seasons might be what tips the equilibrium for us. Certainly, the solstices and equinoxes were important since ancient times, especially in agrarian societies. Autumn coincides with harvests and the start of school. Spring is full of renewal, and summer is often a time of vacations and more time outsdoors.

Sze's poem suggests how the external world can reflect our internal rhythms. The line “looping out into the world, we thread and return” suggests a cyclical journey that internally could be love, memory, or self-discovery. The poem also moves geographically (from Homer to Roanoke), implying that emotional resonance transcends physical space. The speaker admits, “I have no theory of radiance,” because some of what is happening can't be explained and suggests we might be better to experience rather than explain. Turning the gaze upwards to the Moon’s “gleam” and “tides of starlight” evokes a kind of wonder at the vastness and mystery of the universe which might also touch personal experience.

I think that what the poem attempts in using nature as mirror and describing “orange and purple sea stars,” “rain evaporates off pine needles,” and “forsythia buds and blooms” are not just scenic observations, but reflections on inner states of awareness and emotion.

For this submission, can you, in your real or imagined life, think of moments of transition when the balance tipped, and can you connect them to changes in nature? It might not be an equinox or solstice. Perhaps, it is the changing of the tide, the rising or setting of the Sun, the first or last frost, a coming or leaving storm, fog lifting, Moon phases, meteor showers, or the first flower or fruit in your garden. 

 The deadline for submissions for the next issue is October 31, 2025. Please refer to our submission guidelines and look at our archive of 26 years of prompts and poems.

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Arthur Sze (b. 1950, New York City) is an American poet, and translator whose work interweaves nature, science, and Eastern-Western traditions. The son of Chinese immigrants, Sze studied briefly at MIT before transferring to UC Berkeley, where he completed a BA in a self-designed poetry major. Over a career spanning five decades, he has published twelve poetry collections and numerous translations, essays, and interviews. His most recent works include the poetry collection Into the Hush (Copper Canyon Press, 2025) and the prose-and-verse volume The White Orchard: Selected Interviews, Essays, and Poems (Museum of New Mexico Press, 2025).
Now, as the 25th U.S. Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry by the Library of Congress for the 2025-2026 term, he plans to emphasize poetry in translation as a way to deepen public engagement with poetry and enrich the national poetic imagination.

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