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Rail
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.
- GenresPoetry
104 pages, Paperback
First published April 24, 2018
3 people are currently reading
98 people want to read
About the author
Kai Carlson-Wee
6 books25 followersKai Carlson-Wee is the author of RAIL (BOA Editions, 2018). His work has appeared in Ploughshares, Best New Poets, New England Review, Gulf Coast, and The Missouri Review, which awarded him the 2013 Editor’s Prize. 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 is a Jones Lecturer at Stanford University.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 2, 2019
The poem I most remember is about the speaker sleeping in a garden in Paris and overhearing a couple having sex—it is the content of the story and the emotion of the later contrasted loneliness that sticks with me. What I most admired is probably his varied vocabulary. For a book that maintains the familiar subject matter of hopping trains and exploring the American West with little money, the language stays fresh. It helps that different relationships are explored—brothers, friends, lovers—and that the “vibe” is the same but the actual location changes as the speaker explores various cities. A lot of the poems use first-person plural and the repetition of “we” was indeed inviting.
August 26, 2020
Where the Feeling Deserts Us
I pull up the blanket
to cover my bare arms. Cool air filled
with the pressures of falling dew. This is the best
I can give for a reason—the metal accepts you,
whoever you are. The train you are riding will only
go forward. The straight line is perfectly clear.
I pull up the blanket
to cover my bare arms. Cool air filled
with the pressures of falling dew. This is the best
I can give for a reason—the metal accepts you,
whoever you are. The train you are riding will only
go forward. The straight line is perfectly clear.
July 24, 2023
Yeah… I really wanted to like this one but I just don’t think it was for me. As a poet myself, I always love ready poetry from other modern poets to see how they express themselves artistically, but something about this book really fell flat for me.
It started off okay! But quickly it became clear there wasn’t too much actual poetic technique being applied here. There was no rhyme scheme, no rhythm, no real purpose for cutting the sentences the way they were cut other than for the purpose of “making it seem poetic” in the most boring way possible. It would be something I could look over if it wasn’t for every single poem. I like when poets experiment with different techniques in different poems, but this feels like just streams of consciousness that don’t try to be anything more than just that. And again, there’s a time and place where that works really well! Hell, I have a poem or two that are like that, but it really detracts from the artistic vision when it’s ONLY that.
Then comes my other problem. Unless I just misread a lot of what the subject matter was, it seemed this author grew up relatively wealthy and did this on purpose…? The concept originally was interesting, but getting to the poem where he talks about “freedom” and not having it or something I was kind of checked out. And that was only the middle point of the book! I really had to force myself through a lot the latter half of this book.
Lastly, I’d like to sort of circle back to the writing itself. It says a lot without saying much at all, if that makes sense? There were a lot of “big” words, but nothing about them or the sentences around them were really evocative at all. I didn’t feel much reading these books. And to me, that’s what’s most important about poetry. I like to feel things, to think about things. Some of the most influential “poems” came from very simple, yet loving words written on Tumblr. Big, complex sentences don’t mean anything if the poem isn’t really about anything. And I don’t mean to be that harsh, but I never really felt like any of these poems had anything deeper to talk about.
Sorry this review was so long, and almost scathing at some points, I just really love poetry and was disappointed that this wasn’t something more. I think Carlson-Wee had some potential, and I wish he would’ve sat with these and made them more powerful before publishing.
It started off okay! But quickly it became clear there wasn’t too much actual poetic technique being applied here. There was no rhyme scheme, no rhythm, no real purpose for cutting the sentences the way they were cut other than for the purpose of “making it seem poetic” in the most boring way possible. It would be something I could look over if it wasn’t for every single poem. I like when poets experiment with different techniques in different poems, but this feels like just streams of consciousness that don’t try to be anything more than just that. And again, there’s a time and place where that works really well! Hell, I have a poem or two that are like that, but it really detracts from the artistic vision when it’s ONLY that.
Then comes my other problem. Unless I just misread a lot of what the subject matter was, it seemed this author grew up relatively wealthy and did this on purpose…? The concept originally was interesting, but getting to the poem where he talks about “freedom” and not having it or something I was kind of checked out. And that was only the middle point of the book! I really had to force myself through a lot the latter half of this book.
Lastly, I’d like to sort of circle back to the writing itself. It says a lot without saying much at all, if that makes sense? There were a lot of “big” words, but nothing about them or the sentences around them were really evocative at all. I didn’t feel much reading these books. And to me, that’s what’s most important about poetry. I like to feel things, to think about things. Some of the most influential “poems” came from very simple, yet loving words written on Tumblr. Big, complex sentences don’t mean anything if the poem isn’t really about anything. And I don’t mean to be that harsh, but I never really felt like any of these poems had anything deeper to talk about.
Sorry this review was so long, and almost scathing at some points, I just really love poetry and was disappointed that this wasn’t something more. I think Carlson-Wee had some potential, and I wish he would’ve sat with these and made them more powerful before publishing.
November 3, 2019
"Rail" covers some potentially challenging themes (dereliction, substance abuse, mental illness, infrastructural decay, the demographic hollowing of the USA interior...) and makes them not only approachable, not only just part of the "living life day-to-day as we know it" as its experienced, but part of the rhythm of the panorama. They're just more contrast highlighting the landscapes passing by in one of the most pointlessly dangerous yet romanticized forms of travel: stowing away on freight rail.
I've not normally been a poetry reader but this book makes me reconsider that. It makes me think I've been reading poetry all wrong for me: paying close attention and trying to parse out subtleties at times of alertness, when really I should find work where the rhythms can wash over like music as I approach falling into sleep.
These poems may be particularly effective at developing a nighttime rhythm and mood as it recounts the experiences of penetrating the veil of anxiety and depression through constant danger, continuous noise, sharp temperatures, stark sunshine, and American landscapes of every variety.
(Bonus tip: Dan Deacon's song "Rail" is good companion music, and the "America" suite that track is from is meant to convey similar themes as these poems.)
(Shout-out to the podcast "Entitled Opinions" for introducing me to this work)
I've not normally been a poetry reader but this book makes me reconsider that. It makes me think I've been reading poetry all wrong for me: paying close attention and trying to parse out subtleties at times of alertness, when really I should find work where the rhythms can wash over like music as I approach falling into sleep.
These poems may be particularly effective at developing a nighttime rhythm and mood as it recounts the experiences of penetrating the veil of anxiety and depression through constant danger, continuous noise, sharp temperatures, stark sunshine, and American landscapes of every variety.
(Bonus tip: Dan Deacon's song "Rail" is good companion music, and the "America" suite that track is from is meant to convey similar themes as these poems.)
(Shout-out to the podcast "Entitled Opinions" for introducing me to this work)
January 2, 2022
If you like Nirvana by Bukowski you will enjoy this verse novella.
June 5, 2018
The book meant so much more to me after I read this article by the author: http://lithub.com/train-hopping-gave-...
October 10, 2020
This book rules.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews