Albert Sze: Congratulations National 25th USA Poet Laureate

I just wrote about a poet Jack Foley. How about another poet? As poet Ezra Pund said, Poetry is always news.

I received an email from Poets and Writer’s magazine to get free tickets to listen to Albert Sze on December 11, 2025 hosted by the Library of Congress , his poetry reading from his collection , a 50 year long career as poet and teacher.

Hey, I know this poet. He was one of the teachers in poetry and fiction writing workshop at Napa Writing Conference. While on a break, I’d talked to him that I admired and liked his poems very much and I’d wished he’d be a Poet Laureate or a Pulitzer Prize winner. That was 20 years ago. He was friendly, smiling, charming. He signed my book(my book somewhere in the attic) , said he was complimented but it seemed it was next to impossible since he was born of Chinese immigrants parents. But now my wish for him came true.

I remember the keynote opening of the Napa Writing Conference was Kay Ryan who later became USA Poet Laureate but I didn’t predict that outcome. Tips on writing poems. Kay Ryan said “Because I loved it, writing.”

I remember at a Stacey’s bookstore(now a defunct at downtown San Francisco) , I bought a Jorie Graham “Unified Field”, which won a Pulitzer Prize, I thought Albert Sze had a much more beautiful imagery deserved also prize or a title. I told him that.

Arthur Sze explores space, cosmic nebulae and galaxies then to molecular spaces of our minds and surroundings, using scientific imagery (stars, light, matter) , nature (chameleons, deer, water) and human experience to connect the big and tiny , highlighting the ever changing universe through human consciousness transforming into prose and poems.

I remember quoting his concept of space of his lecture at Napa Writing Conference when I wrote an Alphabet article on Sheila Waters(Royal Academy of Arts education ) aka “Queen of Calligraphy”because she spoke of letter spacing, word spacing, interlinear spacing.

Excerpt of a poem by Albert Sze

“Here (from The Glass Constellation )
Here a snail on a wet leaf shivers and dreams of spring.
Here a green iris in December.
Here the topaz light of the sky.
Here one stops hearing a twig break and listens for deer.
Here the art of the ventriloquist.
Here the obsession of a kleptomaniac to steal red pushpins.
Here the art of the alibi.”

“Last fall the Library of Congress honored Arthur Sze with our Bobbitt Prize, for lifetime achievement in poetry; this fall we are thrilled to bring him back to the Library as the nation's poet laureate,” said Acting Librarian of Congress Robert Randolph Newlen.

To learn more of Albert Sze and his poetry

Please click on link below:

https://newsroom.loc.gov/news/library-of-congress-names-arthur-sze-the-nation-s-25th-u.s.-poet-laureate/s/b8413b7b-50b4-4284-9e0e-b0adbde0b70b