Hayden

At a time when its leadership is in question and its mission challenged, the Library of Congress has named a new U.S. poet laureate, the much-honored author and translator Arthur Sze.

The library announced Monday that the 74-year-old Sze had been appointed to a one-year term, starting this fall. The author of 12 poetry collections and recipient last year of a lifetime achievement award from the library, he succeeds Ada Limón, who had served for three years. Previous laureates also include Joy Harjo, Louise Glück and Billy Collins.

Speaking during a recent Zoom interview with the Associated Press, Sze acknowledged some misgivings when Rob Casper, who heads the library’s poetry and literature center, called him in June about becoming the next laureate.

He wondered about the level of responsibilities and worried about the upheaval since President Trump fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden in May. After thinking about it overnight, he called Casper back and happily accepted.

“I think it was the opportunity to give something back to poetry, to something that I’ve spent my life doing,” he explained, speaking from his home in Santa Fe, N.M. “So many people have helped me along the way. Poetry has just helped me grow so much, in every way.”

Sze’s new job begins during a tumultuous year for the library, a 200-year-old, nonpartisan institution that holds a massive archive of books published in the United States. Trump abruptly fired Hayden after conservative activists accused her of imposing a “woke” agenda, criticism that Trump has expressed often as he seeks sweeping changes at the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian museums and other cultural institutions.

Hayden’s ouster was sharply criticized by congressional Democrats, leaders in the library and scholarly community and such former laureates as Limón and Harjo.

Although the White House announced that it had named Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche as the acting librarian, daily operations are being run by a longtime official at the library, Robert Randolph Newlen. Events such as the annual National Book Festival have continued without interruption or revision.

Laureates are forbidden to take political positions, although the tradition was breached in 2003 when Collins publicly stated his objections to President George W. Bush’s push for war against Iraq.

Newlen is identified in Monday’s announcement as acting librarian, a position he was in line for according to the institution’s guidelines. He praised Sze, whose influences range from ancient Chinese poets to Wallace Stevens, for his “distinctly American” portraits of the Southwest landscapes and for his “great formal innovation.”

“Like Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, Sze forges something new from a range of traditions and influences — and the result is a poetry that moves freely throughout time and space,” his statement reads in part.

Sze’s official title is poet laureate consultant in poetry, a 1985 renaming of a position established in 1937 as consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress. The mission is loosely defined as a kind of literary ambassador, to “raise the national consciousness to a greater appreciation of the reading and writing of poetry.”

Sze wants to focus on a passion going back more than a half-century to his undergraduate years at UC Berkeley — translation.

He remembers reading some English-language editions of Chinese poetry, finding the work “antiquated and dated” and deciding to translate some of it himself, writing out the Chinese characters and engaging with them “on a much deeper level” than he had expected. Besides his own poetry, he has published “The Silk Dragon: Translations From the Chinese.”

“I personally learned my own craft of writing poetry through translating poetry,” he says. “I often think that people think of poetry as intimidating, or difficult, which isn’t necessarily true. And I think one way to deepen the appreciation of poetry is to approach it through translation.”

Sze is a New York City native and son of Chinese immigrants who in such collections as “Sight Lines” and “Compass Rose” explores themes of cultural and environmental diversity and what he calls “coexisting.”

In a given poem, he might shift from rocks above a pond to people begging in a subway, from a firing squad in China to Thomas Jefferson’s plantation in Virginia. His many prizes include the National Book Award for “Sight Lines.”

He loves poetry from around the world but feels at home writing in English, if only for the “richness of the vocabulary” and the wonders of its origins.

“I was just looking at the word ‘ketchup,’ which started from southern China, went to Malaysia, was taken to England, where it became a tomato-based sauce, and then, of course, to America,” he says. “And I was just thinking days ago, that’s a word we use every day without recognizing its ancestry, how it’s crossed borders, how it’s entered into the English language and enriched it.”

Italie writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — President Trump abruptly fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden as the White House continues to purge the federal government of those perceived to oppose the president and his agenda.

Hayden was notified in an email late Thursday from the White House’s Presidential Personnel Office, according to an email obtained by the Associated Press. Confirmed by the Senate to the job in 2016, Hayden was the first woman and the first African American to be librarian of Congress.

“Carla,” the email began. “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as the Librarian of Congress is terminated effective immediately. Thank you for your service.” A spokesperson for the Library of Congress confirmed that the White House told Hayden she was dismissed.

Hayden, whose 10-year term was set to expire next year, had come under backlash from a conservative advocacy group that had vowed to root out those standing in the way of Trump’s agenda. The group, American Accountability Foundation, accused her and other library leaders of promoting children’s books with “radical” content and literary material authored by Trump opponents.

“The current #LibrarianOfCongress Carla Hayden is woke, anti-Trump, and promotes trans-ing kids,” AAF said on its X account earlier Thursday, just hours before the firing was made public. “It’s time to get her OUT and hire a new guy for the job!”

All around the government, Trump has been weeding out officials who he believes don’t align with his agenda, from the Justice Department to the Pentagon and beyond. At times, the firings come after conservative voices single out officials for criticism.

Earlier Thursday, the acting administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was pushed out one day after he had testified that he did not agree with proposals to dismantle the organization. Trump has suggested that individual states, not FEMA, should take the lead on responding to hurricanes, tornadoes and other crises.

At the Pentagon, more than a half-dozen top general officers have been fired since January, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. CQ Brown Jr. The only two women serving as four-star officers, as well as a disproportionate number of other senior female officers, have also been fired.

The unexpected move Thursday against Hayden infuriated congressional Democrats, who initially disclosed the firing.

“Enough is enough,” said Senate Democratic Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York, who called Hayden “a “trailblazer, a scholar, and a public servant of the highest order.”

Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said Hayden was “callously fired” by Trump and demanded an explanation from the administration as to why she was dismissed.

“Hayden has spent her entire career serving people — from helping kids learn to read to protecting some of our nation’s most precious treasures,” said Rep. Joseph Morelle of New York, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee that oversees the Library.

“She is an American hero,” he said.

The Library of Congress, with its stately buildings across from the U.S. Capitol, holds a vast collection of the nation’s books and history, which it makes available to the public and lawmakers. It houses the papers of nearly two dozen presidents and more than three dozen Supreme Court justices.

It also has collections of rare books, prints and photographs, as well as troves of music and valuable artifacts — like a flute owned by President James Madison, which the singer and rapper Lizzo played in a 2022 performance arranged by Hayden.

The Democratic leaders praised Hayden, who had been the longtime leader of Baltimore’s library system, for a tenure that helped modernize the Library and make it more accessible with initiatives into rural communities and online. She is a graduate of Roosevelt University and the University of Chicago.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) applauded Hayden as “an accomplished, principled and distinguished Librarian of Congress.”

“Donald Trump’s unjust decision to fire Dr. Hayden in an email sent by a random political hack is a disgrace and the latest in his ongoing effort to ban books, whitewash American history and turn back the clock,” Jeffries said.

“The Library of Congress is the People’s Library. There will be accountability for this unprecedented assault on the American way of life sooner rather than later,” he said.

New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich, the top Democrat on the Senate panel that oversees funding for the library, said the firing, which he said came at 6:56 p.m., was “taking his assault on America’s libraries to a new level.”

“Dr. Hayden has devoted her career to making reading and the pursuit of knowledge available to everyone,” he said.

Robert Newlen, the principal deputy librarian, said he would serve as acting librarian of Congress “until further instruction” in a separate email seen by the AP.

“I promise to keep everyone informed,” he wrote to colleagues.

Hayden spoke recently of how libraries changed her own life, and opened her to the world.

“Libraries are the great equalizer,” she posted on X during National Library Week last month.

“And when you have a free public library in particular,” she said, it’s an “opportunity center for people all walks of life, and you are giving them the opportunity to make choices on which information, entertainment and inspiration means the most to them.”

Kim, Mascaro and Miller write for the Associated Press.