My Poetry Corner January 2026 features the poem “Jaguar Song” from the twelfth poetry collection Into the Hush by Arthur Sze, Poet Laureate of the United States 2025-2026. He is the first Asian American to serve in this position. The following excerpts of poems are all sourced from this collection which explores humanity’s impact on Mother Nature together with glimpses of her untouched beauty.

Listen—in an Anchorage night, / a crunching resembling cars colliding, / and, as the incoming tide slaps, / you will never forget inlet ice breakup; black spruce branches are etched / against the sky; far from a city lined / with fast-food spots, bars, and pawnshops, […] you marvel at the green translucency / of leaves, the mystery of photosynthesis; / as grief and joy well up, you step / into the vernal sharpening of the day— / apricot trees are the first to bloom. (Poem “Spring View” p. 5).

Born in 1950 in New York City to Chinese immigrants, Sze is an award-winning poet with twelve books of poetry published, a translator of classical Chinese poetry, and editor. His journey to becoming a poet began in 1968 during his first semester at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he was pursuing a career in the sciences. As he tells it during an interview in 2025 with Jim Natal for Marsh Hawk Press:

“I sat in a large calculus class and felt increasingly bored by the lecture. I remember flipping to the back of a spiral notebook, and I started writing phrases to a poem. I was excited at what came to me, and, before the end of class, I had a rough draft…”