Sight Lines Explained

Sight Lines
Author:	Arthur Sze
Cover Artist:	Eve Aschheim
Country:	United States
Language:	English
Genre:	Poetry
Publisher:	Copper Canyon Press
Pub Date:	April 9, 2019
Media Type:	Print (paperback)
Pages:	80
Awards:	National Book Award for Poetry (2019)
Isbn:	978-1-55659-559-2
Oclc:	1050955727
Dewey:	811/.54
Congress:	PS3569.Z38 A6 2019

Sight Lines is the tenth poetry collection by Arthur Sze. It was published by Copper Canyon Press in April 9, 2019.^[1]

The collection won the 2019 National Book Award for Poetry (USA).^[2] Judges of the prize praised Sze's "quiet mastery which generates beautiful, sensuous, inventive, and emotionally rich poems."^[3]

Contents

• "Water Calligraphy"
• "Stilling to North"
• "No one"
• "Westbourne Street"
• "Cloud Hands"
• "In the Bronx"
• "Unpacking a Globe"
• "During the Cultural Revolution"
• "Traversal"
• "The Radiant's"
• "Doppler Effect"
• "Adamant"
• "A woman detonates"
• "Python Skin"
• "Lichen Song"
• "Black Center"
• "Under a Rising Moon"
• "Light Echoes"
• "First Snow"
• "Salt cedar"
• "Courtyard Fire"
• "White Sands"
• "Salt Song"
• "The plutonium waste"
• "Sprang"
  • 1 "Winter Stars"
  • 2 "Hole"
  • 3 "Talisman"
  • 4 "Kintsugi"
  • 5 "Yellow Lightning"
  • 6 "Red-Ruffed Lemur"
  • 7 "This Is the Writing, the Speaking of the Dream"
  • 8 "Net Light"
  • 9 "Sprang"
• "A man who built"
• "Transfigurations --
• "Dawn Redwood"
• "Xeriscape"
• "The Far Norway Maples"
• "Sight Lines"
• "The Glass Constellation"

Reception

Publishers Weekly called it "finely crafted and philosophical".^[4]

In her review for The New York Times, Tess Taylor wrote, "This is a poetry of assemblage, where violence and beauty combine and hang on Sze's particular gift for the leaping non sequitur."^[5]

Florian Gargaillo of the Colorado Review praised Sze's philosophy represented through strikethroughs, writing, "It is this degree of self-questioning, this wariness of authority in himself and others, that makes Sze such a valuable poet for this moment."^[6]

Notes and References

1. Web site: Sight Lines by Arthur Sze . July 25, 2020 . Copper Canyon Press.
2. Web site: National Book Awards 2019. www.nationalbook.org.
3. Web site: Sight Lines. www.nationalbook.org.
4. Web site: Poetry Book Review: Sight Lines by Arthur Sze . April 15, 2019 . . July 25, 2020.
5. Web site: Taylor . Tess . Tess Taylor . April 26, 2019 . Four New Poetry Collections Confront Despair With Wonder . July 25, 2020 . The New York Times.
6. Web site: Gargaillo . Florian . Sight Lines . July 25, 2020 . Colorado Review.