\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Sze brings together disparate realms of experience\u0026mdash;-astronomy, botany, anthropology, Taoism\u0026mdash;and observes their correspondences with an exuberant attentiveness.\u0026rdquo;\u0026mdash;\u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c/i\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Sze\u0026rsquo;s poems seem dazzled and haunted by patterns.\u0026rdquo;\u0026mdash;\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c/i\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eQuipu\u003c/i\u003e was a tactile recording device for the pre-literate Inca, an assemblage of colored knots on cords. In his eighth collection of poetry, Arthur Sze utilizes \u003ci\u003equipu\u003c/i\u003e as a unifying metaphor, knotting and stringing luminous poems that move across cultures and time, from elegy to ode, to create a precarious splendor.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eRevelation never comes as a fern uncoiling\u003cbr\u003e a frond in mist; it comes when I trip on a root,\u003cbr\u003e slap a mosquito on my arm. We go on, but stop\u003cbr\u003e when gnats lift into a cloud as we stumble into\u003cbr\u003e a bunch of rose apples rotting on the ground.\u003c/i\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLong admired for his poetic fusions of science, history, and anthropology, in \u003ci\u003eQuipu\u003c/i\u003e, Sze\u0026rsquo;s lines and language are taut and mesmerizing, nouns can become verbs\u0026mdash;\u0026ldquo;where is passion that orchids the body?\u0026rdquo;\u0026mdash;and what appears solid and -stable may actually be fluid and volatile.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eA point of exhaustion can become a point of renewal:\u003cbr\u003e it might happen as you observe a magpie on a branch,\u003cbr\u003e or when you tug at a knot and discover that a grief\u003cbr\u003e disentangles, dissolves into air. Renewal is not\u003cbr\u003e possible to a calligrapher who simultaneously\u003cbr\u003e draws characters with a brush in each hand;\u003cbr\u003e it occurs when the tip of a brush slips yet swerves\u003cbr\u003e into flame . . .\u003c/i\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eArthur Sze\u003c/b\u003e is the author of eight books of poetry and a volume of translations. He is the recipient of an Asian American Literary Award, a Lannan Literary Award, and fellowships from the Witter Bynner Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He teaches at the Institute of American Indian Arts and lives in New Mexico.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e
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