#arthur Sze

[llovelymoonn]

favourite poems of may

david baker whale fall

gary fincke the girl who breathes through a hole in her neck

gerald stern loneliness

mary oliver music lesson

chen jun in the kitchen (tr. ming di)

arthur sze pe’ahi light

jennifer elise foerster leaving tulsa: “leaving tulsa”

caconrad lonely deep affection

tishani doshi girls are coming out of the woods: “how to be happy in 101 days”

joshua corey mrs. god

kamau brathwaite born to slow horses: “bread”

jennifer kwon dobbs paper pavilion: “digital archive”

kimberly nguyen pregnant pauses

lucille clifton the book of light: “brothers”

pippa little the summer i lived as a wolf

natasha sajé alive

marjorie meeker colour of water

rae armantrout veil: new and selected poems: “dusk”

yi sang au magasin de nouveautes (tr. sawako nakayasu)

tracy k. smith wade in the water: “dusk”

billy collins the breather

leah umansky unleashed

javier zamora how i learned to walk

jacob trapp portrait

satoru sato susuki and dragonflies

jinhao xie moonlight

maya emilia another bomb set off in

eleanor ross tayler captive voices: “against the kitchen wall”

giovanna lomanto i’ll pray for you when you leave

mary oliver in the blackwater woods

natalie diaz when my brother was an aztec: “abecedarian requiring further examination of anglikan seraphym subjugation of a wild indian rezervation”

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[lilllium]

— Arthur Sze, from Pe’ahi Light

[missedstations]

To the Tune of "Meeting Happiness" - Li Yu

Silent and alone, I ascend the west tower. The moon is like a hook. In solitude, the wutong trees imprison the clear autumn in the deep courtyard. Scissored but not severed, trimmed but still massive: it is the sorrow of parting, another strange flavor in the heart. Translated from the Chinese by Arthur Sze

[paddy-garcia-70]

[thesefevereddays]

Midsummer

By Arthur Sze

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.

[beingharsh]

"Water Calligraphy" by Arthur Sze, Sight Lines

[extollingtheeveryday]

Arthur Sze // "Midsummer"

[noleavestoblow]

Perhaps

Perhaps you have wept and wept, and can weep no more. Perhaps. Perhaps you ought to sleep a bit; then don’t let the nighthawk cough, the frogs croak, or the bats fly.

Don’t let the sunlight open the curtain onto your eyes. Don’t let a cool breeze brush your eyebrows. Ah, no one will be able to startle you awake: I will open an umbrella of dark pines to shelter your sleep.

Perhaps you hear earthworms digging in the mud, or listen to the root hairs of small grasses sucking up water. Perhaps this music you are listening to is lovelier than the swearing and cursing noises of men.

Then close your eyelids, and shut them tight. I will let you sleep; I will let you sleep. I will cover you lightly, lightly with yellow earth. I will slowly, slowly let the ashes of paper money fly.

-Wen Yiduo (transl. by Arthur Sze)

[abellinthecupboard]

Impromptu for Arthur Sze

Dragonflies inscribe invisible hieroglyphics on the pink-and-purple dusklight parchment of sky; behind them, miles away, hundreds of feet higher, a helicopter blinks one red light, bears down on some distant troubled sector. I have finished my three-fennel tea; I have read some very fine lines. I think of palm tree sap spattered against my windowpane in pale indecipherable patterns; I think of the blood spatter patterns interpreted to convict a man of killings he did not commit. Always I live torn between believing the final digit of pi might yet unlock an encrypted cosmic code and believing the Jesus-faces found in bruises are mere pareidolia, precious imputations. A squirrel bounds from a palm frond, all bustle, chitter, bottlebrush tail; untraceable night birds swiftly revise the sky; later, I will use mineral spirits to remove the sap mapping nothing on my panes; elsewhere, a helicopter lands and, amid the man-made gusts of its rotating blades, someone important steps out in a black suit and—self-reflexively, unselfconsciously—smooths down the wind- rucked thighs of his thousand—dollar slacks.

— Stephen Kampa, featured in Sixth Finch Summer 2023 issue (source)

[freethinkingandopenminded]

[whifferdills]

girl the what

oh k

[kirnet]

Like idk what’s happening here but these lines are pretty <3

I picked up a random poetry collection from the library since it’s poetry month and since I really don’t read that much of it. I���ve only really read it in school, ya know? And wow I just really don’t have the muscle for pulling it apart? I’m enjoying the collection, there’s enough lines and ideas that are grabbing me that I might even buy the book to annotate, but I don’t necessarily get what the poem is about?

[llovelymoonn]

favourite poems of october

alfred starr a dark dreambox of another kind: the poems of alfred starr: "didn't you ever search for another star?

stephen spender new collected poems: "auden's funeral"

marianne boruch keats is coughing

noa micaela fields zoeglossia: poem of the week, may 17, 2021: "echolalia"

kevin young diptych

richard siken real estate

crisosto apache kúghą/home

mikko harvey for m

nathan hoks nests in air: "the barbed wire nest"

john a. holmes noon waking

crisosto apache 37 common characterisi(x)s of a displaced indian with a learning disability

oliver de la paz requiem for the orchard: "at the time of my birth"

zhang xun jiangnan song (tr. bijaan noormohamed)

paul violi fracas: "extenuating circumstances"

tianru wang after "yellow crane tower"

lloyd schwartz cairo traffic: "nostalgia (the lake at night)"

kamiko han the narrow road to the interior: "the orient"

rigoberto gonzalez unpeopled eden: "unpeopled eden"

adelaide crapsey verse: "to the dead in the graveyard underneath my window"

chester kallman night music

alan shapiro covenant: "covenant"

tom clark light and shade: new and selected poems: "radio"

tc tolbert my melissa,

charlie smith in praise of regret

carolyn kizer cool, calm, and collected: poems 1960-2000: "fanny"

julie sheehan orient point: "hate poem"

arthur sze the redshifting web: poems 1970-1998: "streamers"

joumana altallal everything here...in the voice of tara fares

abid b al-abras last simile

w.s. merwin to lingering regrets

george scarbrough music

shout me a coffee

[motocorsas]

aleix and jorge

arthur sze, shooting star / radiohead, let down / wikipedia / google / motorcyclesports.net / fontaines d.c., motorcycle boy / motorcyclesports.net / renaissance anatomy models / fontaines d.c., roy's tune / all time low, poppin' champagne / robert frost, nothing gold can stay

[breha]

1 "of light" by agha shahid ali // 2 "clear night" by charles wright // 3 "de profundis clamavi" by charles baudelaire trans. george dillon // 4 "trojan" by jericho brown // 5 "the sun, mad envious, just wants the moon" by patricia smith // 6 "i understand this light to be my home" by mai der vang // 7 "midnight flame" by arthur sze

[the-greatest-fool]

Oh fuck, it’s almost June. Okay, here’s a quick and dirty Asian American literature sweep I recommend for AAPI month. Note this is not meant to cover all of AAPI—obviously, because they’re different ethnic groups and it barely even makes sense to combine the categories to begin with—but instead blast out some of the most famous works that, IMO, should already be household names outside of AsAm lit/studies. I also, just based off my own interests, included works that look at the interplay between race and gender and sexuality.

I included “trending” writers, but I also wanted to redirect some attention to work and writings that have been in this field for literally decades. This is off the top of my head and written on my phone, plus I doubt anyone will read this. I may return to this in the future.

Essayists & Memoirs:

Eric Liu, Notes of a Native Speaker

Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior

Alexander Chee, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel

Cathy Park Hong, Minor Feelings

Jia Tolentino, Trick Mirror

Jay Caspian Kang, The Loneliest Americans

Hua Hsu, Stay True

Playwrights:

David Henry Hwang: Chinglish, Yellow Face, M. Butterfly

Novelists/Authors:

Louis Chu, Eat a Bowl of Tea

Amy Tan, Joy Luck Club

Gene Luen Yang, American Born Chinese

Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer

Charles Yu, Interior Chinatown

Elaine Hsieh Chou, Disorientation

Ling Ma, Severance

RF Kuang, Yellow Face

Poets:

Theresa Hak Kyung Chu

Arthur Sze

Justin Chin

Timothy Liu

Cathy Park Huang

Ocean Vuong

Other:

David L. Eng, Racial Castration