Tue, Jun 30
|Collected Works Bookstore & Coffeehouse
Arthur Sze, Transient Worlds: On Translating Poetry
"Transient Worlds" is a personal guide to global poetry in translation by 25th U.S. Poet Laureate Arthur Sze. Reading poems from the book will be Kareem James Abu-Zeid, Carol Moldaw, Leo Romero, Irina Ross, and Orlando White (Dinè)
Date, Time & Location
Jun 30, 2026, 6:00 PM MDT
Collected Works Bookstore & Coffeehouse, 202 Galisteo St, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA
About the Event
Join us in-store or register to watch on Zoom.
Pre-order Transient Worlds online or call the store to order (505) 988-4226.
Focusing on an accessible selection of key works, Sze takes readers through nearly two millennia of poetry from every part of the world, constructing fifteen different “zones” of literary discussion with a critical focus on the artistic dimensions of translation itself. Using multiple translations of the same source poems—as well as original poems written by translators—he explores deep connections between the acts of writing and reading. Sze invites readers to consider their own acts of engaged reading as a creative pursuit, giving them tools to begin translating poems themselves as well as tools that will unlock foreign-language works as inspirational sources. At its core, this unique anthology, published in association with the Library of Congress, showcases a profound goal of global literary citizenship: to open works up to all…