About this item
Set against a landscape of rail yards and skate parks, Kai Carlson-Wee's debut collection captures a spiritual journey of wanderlust, depression, brotherhood, and survival. These poems -- a "verse novella" in documentary form -- build momentum as they travel across the stark landscapes of the American West: hopping trains through dusty prairie towns, swapping stories with mystics and outlaws, skirting the edges of mountains and ridges, heading ever westward to find meaning in the remnants of a ruined Romantic ideal. Part cowboy poet, part prophet, Carlson-Wee finds beauty in the grit and kinship among strangers along the road.
About the Author
Kai Carlson-Wee is the author of Rail (BOA Editions, 2018) . He has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, and his work has appeared in Ploughshares, Tin House, Best New Poets, The Southern Review, and The Missouri Review. His photography has been featured in Narrative Magazine, and his poetry film, Riding the Highline, has screened at film festivals across the country. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow, he lives in San Francisco and a lecturer at Stanford University.
