Sight lines

Review by New York Times Review

The sight lines in Sze's 10th " collection are just that - 1 imagistic lines strung together by jump-cuts, creating a filmic collage that itself seems to be a portrait of simultaneity. "Between two points, we traverse an infinite set / of paths," he writes, fascinated by how the accumulation and juxtaposition of disparate, keenly observed things can get us from here to there, allowing us to hold multitudes, too. One poem, "Traversal," spins a tale in couplets about a peaceful morning spent rowing across a lake, a day with "the tensile strength of silk." The facing page, otherwise blank, contains the line "-During the Cultural Revolution, a boy saw his mother shot by a firing squad-." This is a poetry of assemblage, where violence and beauty combine and hang on Sze's particular gift for the leaping non sequitur. "Green tips of tulips are rising out of the earth- / you don't flense a whale or fire at beer cans / in an arroyo but catch the budding / tips of pear branches and wonder," Sze writes. Inside these poems of billowing consciousness, we too are alive to a spectrum of wonders.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 23, 2019]

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

The tenth book from Sze (Compass Rose) contains poems in a range of forms, from hybrid prose poems to luminous lyric fragments, gracefully unified by a preoccupation with transformation. He considers all that is ephemeral in nature-an "actor's face changing" or "pomegranate trees flowering along a highway"-calling attention to the inherent instability of language and the self. Sze artfully matches style and content, the poems changing shape as the book unfolds. He observes, for instance, that "you dissolve midnight and noon; sunlight/ tilts and leafs the tips of the far Norway maples." The poem's pristine couplets are transfigured in the next piece, "Sight Lines," a narrative in single-line stanzas. Sze asserts, "though parallel lines touch in the infinite, the infinite is here." The writing itself revels in the "infinite" refractions and reverberations of poetic technique, as possibilities are gradually unearthed through formal shifts. Sze asks, as though reflecting on the gorgeously layered experience he has created for the reader, "Where are we headed, you wonder, as you pick a lychee and start to peel it." Finely crafted and philosophical, this is a book that rewards multiple careful readings. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

The wonders and realities of the world as seen through travel, nature walks, and daily routine bring life to the poems in Pulitzer Prize finalist Sze's tenth collection (after Compass Rose), even if he also communicates facts about our polluted, damaged world. Sze creates tensile energy by balancing the cerebral with the physical ("you write tingle / and tingle as sleet turns to rain"), and almost every poem incorporates unique details not united by theme or likeness. In the seventh section of "Water Calligraphy," for instance, the poet jumps from the letter A as "an inverted cow's head," to the Perseid meteor shower to a neighbor bringing gifts of cucumbers and basil. But as Sze records elsewhere, "an invisible globe-thud, shattering glass, moan,/ horn blast-so many// worlds to this world." The poems often require rereading, as speaker and location can change abruptly, and it's challenging when Sze seizes upon the negative, what is not happening now: "No sharp-shinned hawk perches/ on the roof rack of his car and scans/ for songbirds." In addition, the sheer number and variety of images can almost overwhelm. But in the end, there is "starlight behind daylight wherever you gaze," and each poem provides a sensual, intellectual take on the world. -VERDICT Provocative work; a solid addition to academic and popular collections.- Doris Lynch, Monroe Cty. P.L., Bloomington, IN © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Adamant Deer browse at sunrise in an apple orchard, while honey locust leaves litter the walk. A neighbor hears gunshots in the bosque and wonders who's firing at close range; I spot bear prints near the Pojoaque River but see no sign of the reported mountain lion. As chlorophyll slips into the roots of a cottonwood and the leaves burst into yellow gold, I wonder, where's our mortal flare? You can travel to where the Tigris and Euphrates flow together and admire the inventions of people living on floating islands of reeds; you can travel along an archipelago and hike among volcanic pools steaming with water and sulfuric acid; but you can't change the eventual, adamant body. Though death might not come like a curare-dipped dart blown out of a tube or slam at you like surf breaking over black lava rock, it will come--it will come--and it unites us-- brother, sister, boxer, spinner--in this pact, while you inscribe a letter with trembling hand.Westbourne StreetPorch light illuminating white steps, lightover a garage door, darkness inside windows--and the darkness exposes the tenuous.A glass blower shapes a rearing horse that shifts, on a stand, from glowing orange to glistening crystal; suddenly the horse shatters into legs, head, body, mane. At midnight, "Fucking idiot!" a woman yells, shaking the house; along a hedge, a man sleeps, coat over head, legs sticking out; and, at 8 am, morning glories open on a fence; a backhoe heads up the street.From this window, he views banana leaves, an orange tree with five oranges, house with shingled roofs, and steps leading to an upstairs apartment; farther off, palm trees,and, beyond, a sloping street, ocean, sky;but what line of sight leads to revelation?Black CenterGreen tips of tulips are rising out of the earth--you don't flense a whale or fire at beer cansin an arroyo but catch the budding tips of pear branches and wonder what it's like to live along a purling edge of spring.Jefferson once tried to assemble a mastodonskeleton on the White House floor but, with pieces missing, failed to sequence the bones;when the last speaker of a language dies,a hue vanishes from the spectrum of visible light. Last night, you sped past revolving and flashing red, blue, and white lights along the road--a wildfire in the dark; though no one you knew was taken in the midnight ambulance,an arrow struck a bull's eye and quivered in its shaft: one minute gratitude riseslike water from an underground lake,another dissolution gnaws from a black center. Excerpted from Sightlines by Arthur Sze All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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