Into the Hush

by Arthur Sze

*Winner of the 2025 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry for Lifetime Achievement*

With imaginative power and emotional force, Into The Hush explores the exigencies of climate change, of endangered cultures, and of our nuclear age.


Like wind on a lake, Arthur Sze’s twelfth book of poetry, Into the Hush, extends a language that ripples and stills, widens and deepens. Through an earned and profound simplicity, these poems move with imaginative power and emotional force and gather a startling array of contrasts—from wildfires to a sprig of sunrise, from gunshots to a spirit evoked by swaying candles—to address the challenges of our nuclear age. Here, poems shadow sonnets and appear as haibun and ekphrasis, pantoum and segmented zuihitsu. They borrow the voice of an eraser and the voice of a jaguar. Even the aspen leaves speak. Sze harnesses a range of innovative forms to respond to the challenges of climate change, exploring what it means to live on an endangered planet. Written at the height of his powers, Into the Hush is a landmark publication. Sze enacts a thrilling journey from silence into sound, from emptiness into the rich panoply of existence.

Genres: Poetry, Asian American

80 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 15, 2025

About the author

Arthur Sze (b. 1950 New York City) is a second-generation Chinese American poet.

Sze was educated at the University of California, Berkeley, and is the author of eight books of poetry. His own poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Conjunctions, The Kenyon Review, Manoa, The Paris Review, Field, The New Yorker, and Virginia Quarterly Review, and have been translated into Albanian, Chinese, Dutch, Italian, Romanian, and Turkish.

He was a Visiting Hurst Professor at Washington University, a Doenges Visiting Artist at Mary Baldwin College, and has conducted residencies at Brown University, Bard College, and Naropa University. He is a professor emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts and is the first poet laureate of Santa Fe.

He is the recipient of a Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Book Award, a Lannan Literary Award for Poetry, two National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing fellowships, a George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation Fellowship, three grants from the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry, and a Western States Book Award for Translation.

Reviews

[Matthew Ted]

This is Arthur Sze's 12th book of poetry, but he only came onto my radar this year when he became the new US Poet Laureate. Penguin Press sent me this as an ARC and I've been quietly making my way through it, more parts baffled than awed. This collection is a blur of oscillating images, mostly natural and pastoral, but also scientific, which all seem to be reaching and grasping out for something that never quite made itself known to me. I was 'inhal[ing] starlight', sensing its beauty, but finding it in an unknown language. Sometimes this is tiresome. It is hard work, and dare I say, it does not pay off, at least not in my case. Singular images lingered, but were soon dissolved by the next, as abstract and distracting as the first; Sze's language kept them in a constant state of flux, appearing then vanishing, before I could claim (or accept) either state entirely. For seasoned contemporary poetry readers, I am sure it will be a treat.

[Taylor Franson-Thiel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really appreciate Sze’s ability to handle Big Topics such as the literal universe, humanities place in a nuclear age, all of earths nature, with grace and focus. The “i” expands to the cosmos and the cosmos are within reach.

[Craig Werner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Arthur Sze has quietly put together one of the most significant bodies of work in contemporary poetry. Quiet, as the title suggests, is a keyword and a spiritual practice. Like Gary Snyder and A.R.Ammons, Sze attends with infinite care to the details of the natural world, intensely aware of, but no despairing over, the crisis/disater we're facing. His perspective spans the globe but remains grounded in the specifics of his place and moment. The thread of calligraphy--the brushwork creating the character for emptiness (if I have it right1)--that unites the book works beautifully as an epic zen koan.

A quick sample:

shadows of flames. wash across our bodies--
sall circles, large circles, circumference is everywhere

Every poem offers rewards, but I checked these as special favorites: "Jaguar Song," "Into the Hush," "Swimming Laps," "Wildfire Season." A second selection: "Anvil," "Among Spruce," "Farolitos," "Downwind," "Oxbow Lakes," "Morning Mist," "Architectures of Emptiness."

[Leigh Hile · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel a little bad for rating so low what are clearly very competent and polished poems. But I really did not like this book, and, honestly, reading it made me mad.

[Christina Borgoyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was tedious.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found one of my new favorite poems!

“Tiger swallowtails hover over Russian sage—
I smell eucalyptus where there is no
eucalyptus and locate summer in rain.
Like bats emerging out of a cave at dusk,
a thread of grief unfurls in the sky.
Neither you nor I can stop the planting
of mines in a field or the next detonation.
I unclog a drip line along a fence;
in May, lilacs arced over the road in a cascade
of purple blossoms. Now, stilled in a minute
of darkness, I listen to bamboo leaves
unfurl above into sunshine. Untangling
a necklace composed of interlocking
gold chains, then lifting it, I trace
joy, fear, bewilderment, bliss, a this
resplendent in my fingertips. I slip inside
a strawberry runner that extends root, leaf,
then stand in morning starlight and inhabit a song.”
-Midsummer, “Forage”


While the rest of the pieces were pleasant, I didn’t resonate deeply with most of them, so the collection gets a 3/5.

[Sassy Sarah Reads · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5 stars

This collection felt like pulling teeth. Arthur Sze is a great poet when it comes to style and structure, but his poetry is not for me. Glad he is the current Poet Laureate, but I don't think I will be picking up any of his other collections anytime in the near future. My review is short because I got most of my opinions out at book club. Interesting collection to discuss.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t remember Arthur Sze writing pantoums in the past, which is bizarre since his entire output of poetry often feels like a galaxy-sized pantoum. Great as always!

[Shari · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this collection because I heard the poet in an interview and was intrigued. I was not disappointed. With various poetic forms included, these powerful poems bring to mind our place in the natural world as well as what we and other creatures are losing--languages, habitat, and more. Much wildlife is included in these poems, particularly birds. My favorite poem in the collection was Jaguar Song, but I also quite liked Eraser Song. The poems are set in many locations, from India to the Arctic and many places in between. This is a wonderful assortment of poems and this book would be great to have nearby, opened at random, and a poem enjoyed when there are a few free minutes available. Highly recommend.

Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the poet for a digital review copy.

[Katrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arthur Sze has already published eleven collections of poetry; Into the Hush is his twelfth, and it is sobering to realise that, until now, his work had entirely passed me by.

Into the Hush has happily remedied that oversight. Here, Sze quietly reflects on the juxtaposition of nature, civilisation, and the universe.

The poems invoke thoughtful, often profound imagery, and the stillness of his reflections only underlines the power of the verse.

Admittedly, the inclusion of science in some of the poems initially threw me, but I came to deeply appreciate its presence.

I will certainly be on the hunt for more of Sze’s work on the back of this.

With thanks to Penguin for the ARC.

[Noam Levinsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Sandhills cranes stirred, circled in the air, flew north—
deep and deeper still, into the blue mountains—“
(Spring view #9, 13)

I loved this collection enough to read it in an afternoon!!

After stewing on this book a little more, Sze’s descriptive writing is just so compelling to me. I love his use of recurring figures - the magpie, Russian sage, the color blue - it creates an effect as if I’m experiencing the world changing around me and trying to hold onto that which is constant.

The structure of the poems is fascinating - I especially love the ones where the lines are spaced out and not grouped into stanzas. The long poems are also astonishing, with each section flowing into the next while remaining distinct.

Much to appreciate here as a nature and climate poet. Some favorites: Spring View, Jaguar Song, Scintillant, Downwind, Into the Hush, Morning Mist, Architectures of Emptiness

[Liam McMullen · Rating 3 out of 5]

- ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) provided by NetGalley -

At times this was difficult to grasp, with some poems in the collection having a (purposely) disjointed style, highlighting the disconnect between nature and the technological advances of humanity, our place in the world, and our impact on nature.
The descriptive language was highly evocative, again showcasing the beauty of the natural world before starkly contrasting with the brutal artifice of human creation that exploits the planet we all call home.

[Chelsie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed my first time reading Arthur Sze. I appreciate the way he juxtaposes images — often beautiful nature images against the ugly parts of humanity — to create an in incredibly jarring effect. He is an effective poet in that he gets the reader to feel, and he is obviously someone who pays close attention to the big and small things around him. Consider me a fan!

[R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sze is probably writing with technical innovation, a poetic prowess, that both astounds and challenges his peers to up their game, but I wouldn't know. All I can say is I like this guy's work and find a sort of joy in his unique juxtapositions of imagery, space, time etc.

[The_J · Rating 3 out of 5]

A challenge when the highlight is a random Greek City: Thessaloniki.

[Rinku · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this blending of science and imagery. I can see why Arthur was picked as our 2025 Poet Laureate. I must admit there were times I did not understand the science parts.

[Stella · Rating 3 out of 5]

low-key not my thing but I liked when he wrote about bombs

[Shannon Burns · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nothing rhymed. It was great!. I really enjoyed these poems. Pretty words.