Getting to Know Bobbitt Prize Winner Arthur Sze

This Thursday, on December 5th, we’re excited to host Arthur Sze, our 2024 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry winner for lifetime achievement in poetry.

Go here for more information about Sze, and click here to register for Thursday’s event.

Sze was selected by the Librarian of Congress based on recommendations from an internal committee in the Literary Initiatives Office. Our committee citation reads:

In 11 books and over more than 50 years, Arthur Sze has developed a signature lyricism of seeing. His poems focus on images and declarations—but they also move through breathtaking juxtapositions, create layers of fragments that open up rather than direct their readers. Sze’s imaginative capaciousness pulls in languages, traditions and systems from both East and West, and it can speak to the cosmos, then turn to the smallest natural detail. His latest collection, “The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems,” captures the range and the commitment of his life’s work, to create “points of connection, reflection and refraction . . . part of an organic growing whole.”

But don’t take our word for it—you can check out Arthur Sze and his work online at loc.gov:

• Reading and discussing Walt Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” as part of our “Poetry of America” series.
• Reading with Bill Zavatsky in 1989 and Cheryl Fish in 1996 at at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery in New York City—part of our St. Mark’s Poetry Project Audio Archive.
• Giving an “intimate lecture” at the 2019 Asian American Literary Festival (his talk starts at 2:45:00), and discussing his lecture on our “From the Catbird Seat: Poetry at the Library of Congress” blog.

We hope to see you on Thursday night!