Arthur Sze named Poet Laureate of the United States

On Monday September 15 the Library of Congress announced that Arthur Sze is the twenty-fifth Poet Laureate of the United States. 

Sze succeeds twenty-fourth U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón who held the office for an historic three years, from 2022–2025. He is the third Copper Canyon Press poet to serve as U.S. Poet Laureate, joining the ranks of W.S. Merwin and Ted Kooser.

“[The Laureateship] is a recognition that belongs to teachers, librarians, editors, poets, readers—everyone who works tirelessly on behalf of poetry,” said Sze in a statement released by the Library of Congress. “As Laureate I feel a great responsibility to promote the ways poetry, especially poetry in translation, can impact our daily lives. We live in such a fast-paced world: Poetry helps us slow down, deepen our attention, connect, and live more fully.”

A recipient of the prestigious 2025 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry for Lifetime Achievement, Sze is a renowned poet and longtime Copper Canyon author, who has published eleven books with the Press over three decades. His most recent collection, Into the Hush (2025), was lauded “another reminder that he deserves the lifetime achievements he’s been winning on a yearly basis,” by Lit Hub, and his previous collection The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems (2021) received the 2024 National Book Foundation Science + Literature Prize. Sze’s numerous other honors include the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, the Jackson Poetry Prize, a Lannan Literary Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award, two National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships, and a Howard Foundation Fellowship, as well as five grants from the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry.

Hailed as “… not only one of our best poets, [but] one of our greatest translators,” by Charles Simic (No Land in Sight), Sze’s translations are as celebrated as his original poetry. With the publication of his anthology The Silk Dragon II (2024), Sze introduced groundbreaking poems by masterful living Chinese poets to American audiences. His laureateship will follow in this tradition, foregrounding the power of translation to deepen our engagement with poetry and with each other’s shared humanity. 

Upon Sze’s appointment as U.S. Poet Laureate, Copper Canyon Press Publisher, Ryo Yamaguchi, stated:

I am overjoyed by this news and think Arthur Sze is the perfect Laureate because he is one of our finest literary citizens. His groundbreaking poetics—materially rich, emotionally sophisticated, vibrant, sonic, and formally charged—have continuously brought the craft to new frontiers. His poetry has been deeply informed by his commitment to translation, which underscores a truly global and millennia-spanning appreciation for literature and its traditions. All of this he brings to his support of other poets. I’ve had the privilege of watching Arthur’s advocacy for so many writers, from risk-taking contemporary Chinese poets to the countless students he has mentored in the important programs at the Institute of American Indian Arts. He was even, in fact, my very first friend when I first moved to Santa Fe, and I still think fondly of our first, earnest lunch as he worked to ground me in the great community we share. I can’t wait to see what he does with this.

To purchase signed copies of Arthur Sze’s books, please visit the website of Santa Fe’s Collected Works Bookstore at cwbookstore.com or call (505) 988-4226.

To learn more about the history and office of the U.S. Poet Laureate, please visit the Library of Congress. For media resources, please visit our Media and Event Support page or email Communications & Publicity Assistant Elizabeth Brueggemann directly at communications@coppercanyonpress.org.