Archipelago

Arthur Sze

Archipelago was the winner of the 1996 American Book Award in Poetry. By turns spiritual and creative, meditative and active, Archipelago draws upon both Buddhist and Native American art and culture and is inspired by the Zen garden at Ryōan-ji. The fifteen poems, like stones set in a sea of raked gravel, are seen only within the context of a larger interdependence.

ISBN: 9781556591006

Format: Paperback

About the Author

Arthur Sze has published eleven books of poetry, including Sight Lines (2019), which won the National Book Award, and The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems (2021). His other books include Compass Rose (2014), a Pulitzer Prize finalist; The Ginkgo Light (2009), selected for the PEN Southwest Book Award and the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association Book Award; Quipu (2005); The Redshifting Web: Poems 1970–1998, selected for the Balcones Poetry Prize and the Asian American Literary Award; and Archipelago …

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Reviews

“Sze’s fifth collection translates the poet’s spiritual quest into memorable imagery.” —Library Journal

“There are very few books of poetry that hold such a variety of passion… for language, texture, ideas, morals, suffering, conflicts, and for the world’s beauty—in such compassionate and graceful form.” —Bloomsbury Review