The Silk Dragon II
Translations of Chinese Poetry
National Book Award–winner Arthur Sze presents a one-of-a-kind anthology that vividly traces Chinese poetry from its centuries-old lyrical traditions up to the present day.
In The Silk Dragon II, National Book Award–winning poet Arthur Sze presents a sophisticated vision of the vitality, diversity, and power of the Chinese poetic tradition. Traveling over one and a half millennia, Sze guides readers through a luminous history of verse, from the contemplative insights of fifth century poet Tao Qian, through Tang dynasty poets such as Wang Wei and Du Fu, and into subsequent centuries in which lived such innovative artists as Li Qingzhao and Bada Shanren, among many others.
Extending the work from the original 2001 volume, The Silk Dragon II then traces classical Chinese poetry’s eruption into the free verse of the modern and contemporary eras, introducing groundbreaking poems by the Chinese Modernist master Wen Yiduo, as well as those from major living poets such as Wang Jiaxin, Zhai Yongming, and Xi Chuan. Through this remarkable journey—deepened by Sze’s personal introduction—we see that the “impossible task” of translation is yet rich with encounter, as both long-lost voices and those still speaking enter the same conversation, with the same vivacity.
Arthur Sze is a poet, translator, and editor. He is the author of twelve books of poetry, including The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems (2021), selected for a 2024 National Book Foundation Science + Literature Prize; Sight Lines (2019), for which he received the National Book Award; Compass Rose (2014), a Pulitzer Prize finalist; The Ginkgo Light (2009), selected for the PEN Southwest Book Award and the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association Book Award; Quipu (2005); The Redshifting Web: Poems 1970–1998 (1998), selected for the Balcones Poetry Prize and the Asian American Literary Award; and Archipelago (1995), selected for an American Book Award. He has also published The Silk Dragon II: Translations of Chinese Poetry (2024) and edited Chinese Writers on Writing (2010). Another collection, The White Orchard: Selected Interviews, Essays, and Poems, is forthcoming from the Museum of New Mexico Press in spring 2025. A recipient of the 2024 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, 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, Sze was the first poet laureate of Santa Fe, where he lives with his wife, the poet Carol Moldaw. A chancellor emeritus of the Academy of American Poets and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he was the 2023–2024 Mohr Visiting Poet at Stanford University. His poetry has been translated into fifteen languages, including Chinese, Dutch, German, Portuguese, and Spanish. He is a professor emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts.
More books by author
