By Emmanuel Thomas l Tuesday, August 18, 2026
WASHINGTON — In an era marked by geopolitical friction and deep societal divides, the 25th U.S. Poet Laureate, Arthur Sze, is proposing a surprisingly tactile remedy to bridge cultural gaps: inviting everyday Americans to step into the shoes of literary translators.
Starting this September, Sze will embark on a four-city national tour for his signature project, “Words Bridging Worlds.” Announced Monday by the Library of Congress, the initiative aims to demystify foreign-language poetry by equipping audiences—regardless of their multilingual fluency—with the tools to translate international works into English.
”We live in a challenging world that is increasingly interconnected,” Sze said in a statement accompanying the announcement. “Poetry is for everyone, and it bridges our differences by showing us that our experiences of what it is to be human reach across languages, cultures and time. Now, more than ever, we need to recognize how poetry deepens our attention and understanding, and how it helps us connect.”
Sze describes the venture as “democracy in action,” imagining public spaces where citizens of all ages and backgrounds assemble around a shared artistic practice.
The nationwide tour will blend traditional public readings with interactive translation workshops. To guide participants, Sze will partner with graduate students from Queens College’s Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing and literary translation in New York City.
The curriculum builds directly on Sze’s latest book, Transient Worlds: On Translating Poetry, published in April by Copper Canyon Press in association with the Library of Congress.
Assembled during his first term as laureate, the volume features 22 poems translated from 13 languages. It breaks the translation process into 15 accessible “zones,” explicitly structured to guide readers through reinterpreting foreign verse even if they have no prior training in the original language.
The four-city tour will rely on local literary non-profits and state affiliates of the Center for the Book: Honolulu, Hawai’i (Sept. 18–19, 2026): Opening at the Mission Memorial Auditorium alongside the Merwin Conservancy and the Honolulu Mayor’s Office of Culture and the Arts, followed by a workshop with the Hawai’i Center for the Book.
Minneapolis, Minnesota (Nov. 7, 2026): A public event and workshop hosted at the Twin Cities Book Festival in tandem with the Minnesota Center for the Book.
Boise, Idaho (Feb. 9–10, 2027): A collaborative presentation and workshop with literary center The Cabin and the Idaho Center for the Book.
San Antonio, Texas (April 9–10, 2027): A featured appearance with the San Antonio Book Festival and the Texas Center for the Book.
Sze will formally wrap up the project and conclude his tenure as Poet Laureate on April 29, 2027, during a celebratory event at the Library of Congress’s Coolidge Auditorium in Washington, D.C.
Born in New York City in 1950 to Chinese immigrant parents, Sze has long occupied a central position in contemporary American letters.
The author of 12 poetry collections, his work frequently meditates on geography, science, and the intricate connections between natural and human environments. His 2019 collection, Sight Lines, won the National Book Award for Poetry, and his 2014 volume, Compass Rose, was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Sze is also an accomplished translator himself; his widely acclaimed anthology of translated Chinese verse, The Silk Dragon II, was published in 2024.
A former chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and professor emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts, Sze served as the first poet laureate of Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he currently resides.
The U.S. Poet Laureate position—originally established in 1937 as the Chair of Poetry at the Library of Congress before being officially designated as the nation’s Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry by Congress in 1985—has increasingly evolved into a platform for civic engagement.
By focusing his tenure on cross-cultural translation, Sze joins recent predecessors who used the post to expand public access to the humanities, framing translation not as an elite academic exercise, but as an active tool for empathy.
