• “Among Spruce”

    A Poem by Arthur Sze

    Before glimpsing outlines of whorled branches,
    you smell spruce needles, know gophers lie

    in tunnels below ground and sense their tracks.
    You can’t measure the background tracks

    of the big bang but believe in finding what
    is needed when you must. A sea captain

    brewed spruce beer during a voyage and rescued
    his crew from scurvy; a famished hiker

    consumed spruce needles and emerged out
    of the forest. In the darkest minutes before dawn,

    you won’t ever live to experience pure silence
    but were never a composer yearning

    for that nirvana. Standing in the cusp of cold,
    you hunger for a hummingbird darting from scarlet

    penstemon to penstemon in midsummer,
    for a shearwater skimming over ocean waves;

    now, in this dissolving darkness, you strike
    a match and cup this second of warmth, this flame.

    Arthur Sze
    Arthur Sze
    Arthur Sze is a poet, translator, and editor. He is the author of twelve books of poetry, including The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems (2021), selected for a 2024 National Book Foundation Science + Literature Prize; Sight Lines (2019), for which he received the National Book Award; Compass Rose (2014), a Pulitzer Prize finalist; The Ginkgo Light (2009), selected for the PEN Southwest Book Award and the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association Book Award; Quipu (2005); The Redshifting Web: Poems 1970–1998 (1998), selected for the Balcones Poetry Prize and the Asian American Literary Award; and Archipelago (1995), selected for an American Book Award. He has also published The Silk Dragon II: Translations of Chinese Poetry (2024) and edited Chinese Writers on Writing (2010). Another collection, The White Orchard: Selected Interviews, Essays, and Poems, is forthcoming from the Museum of New Mexico Press in spring 2025. A recipient of the 2024 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, the Jackson Poetry Prize, a Lannan Literary Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award, two National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships, and a Howard Foundation Fellowship, as well as five grants from the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry, Sze was the first poet laureate of Santa Fe, where he lives with his wife, the poet Carol Moldaw. A chancellor emeritus of the Academy of American Poets and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he was the 2023–2024 Mohr Visiting Poet at Stanford University. His poetry has been translated into fifteen languages, including Chinese, Dutch, German, Portuguese, and Spanish. He is a professor emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts.





    More Story
    Is There Any Scandal Big Enough to Take Down Nike? The coronavirus pandemic is dramatically disrupting not only our daily lives but society itself. This show features conversations...
  • We Need Your Help:

    Become a Lit Hub Supporting Member

    Lit Hub has always brought you the best of the book world for free—no paywall. But our future relies on you. In return for your contribution, you'll get an ad-free site experience, editors' picks, and our Joan Didion tote bag. Most importantly, you'll keep independent book coverage alive and thriving.