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  • Issue 22 Fall 2021
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Book Review: Rail by Kai Carlson-Wee

Rail
Kai Carlson-Wee
BOA Editions
2018
978-1942683582
104 pages
$16


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, Best New Poets, TriQuarterly, Blackbird, Crazyhorse, and The Missouri Review, which selected his poems for their 2013 Editor’s Prize. His photography has been featured in Narrative Magazine and his poetry film, Riding the Highline, received jury awards at the 2015 Napa Valley Film Festival and the 2016 Arizona International Film Festival. With his brother Anders, he has co-authored two chapbooks, Mercy Songs (Diode Editions) and Two-Headed Boy (Organic Weapon Arts), winner of the 2015 Blair Prize. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow, he lives in San Francisco and teaches poetry at Stanford University.


Review





















A Review of Kai Carlson-Wee's Rail 

Kai Carlson-Wee is an author from Minnesota that has lived the life of a nomad throughout the United States. The poems in Rail give the reader a glimpse at what it means to live this type of life. Carlson-Wee’s experiences as a train hopping traveler is very prevalent throughout the book, as the speakers of the poems often reflect experiences that seem inspired of his journey. In a way, the quasi-autobiographical nature of the poems establishes an intimate tone. Rail, portrays the feeling of wanderlust through the poetry that often changes in its form or subject matter to keep the reader in the unfamiliar, as if they are just wandering through the book themselves not sure of what will come next.
 
The poetry throughout Rail is interspersed with a large array of topics and scenes that can make the reader shiver, sneer, and even laugh. No place is safe from perusal, a poem may bring the reader into situations with a methamphetamine addict, the concrete valleys of a skatepark, or a supermarket’s produce aisle. Often throughout these experiences, there is a speaker presented that often reflects the author, and the strangeness that can be seen highlights the journey into the unknown. The details provided within these poems often bring unfamiliarity, but also a much-needed intimacy that connects the reader. In the poem, “Miss Diana,” we get a speaker who is describing many of the elements of their childhood as well as some horrors of adulthood. As the speaker describes their past, lines like “I rode my chestnut horse in the sun. My dad called him Sweetness. / He lived for the prairie” give specific details that show its authenticity. This poem then is juxtaposed by the switch from light hearted images of childhood into the visceral problems of adult life:

“I am pretty much / hateful of Red Bull. I lived with a man once. He would /
always drink Red Bull. Morning, afternoon, evening, night. He was addicted to methamphetamine. Speed. It was / the worst four years of my life.”

This switch gives the story an interesting contrast as it maneuvers through the beauty of the speaker’s life and then looks at the ugly things within it. Often the content of the poems can lead to scalding subjects, but this is what makes the poetry feel real. It shows how some events can be brutal even when least expected.
           
This sense of contrast is also seen throughout the book with many of the pieces varying in style. Another poem that does something like this is “The Boy’s Head.” The first half of the poem describes the speaker and what the neighborhood is like. But, about halfway through the poem there is a shift that brings surprise and is a reminder of the unknown:

“I went to the skatepark in El Cajon and attempted to flirt / with the girls. People came through, disappeared, made claims. The sun / never altered in its place in the sky. The floodlights came on and the / metalheads listened to boomboxes perched on the stairs. I was down there / one day in September, a day like any other day, when a boy’s head was / found in the playing field.”
This great shift is something that is seen many times within the poems in this book. It is always something that brings shock and shatters the comfortable feelings that are felt just before. It is something that catches the reader off guard as they wander through the rich landscape that is illustrated within Rail. There is a feeling of curiosity as every poem has interesting details or a new perspective that is unexpected.

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​

Zachary Klozik is an undergraduate at Lewis University, studying English and Film Studies. He resides in New Lenox, Illinois and is the poetry editor for Jet Fuel Review. He has been published in Windows Fine Arts Magazine and he is also an amateur filmmaker and board game designer.​

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  • Home
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  • Issue 22 Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Art Fall 2021 >
      • Bonnie Severien Fall 2021
      • Camilla Taylor Fall 2021
      • Guilherme Bergamini Fall 2021
      • Emanuela Iorga Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Poetry Fall 2021 >
      • Maureen Alsop Fall 2021
      • Annah Browning Fall 2021
      • Romana Iorga Fall 2021
      • Natalie Hampton Fall 2021
      • Sherine Gilmour Fall 2021
      • Adam Day Fall 2021
      • Amanda Auchter Fall 2021
      • Adam Tavel Fall 2021
      • Sara Moore Fall 2021
      • Karen Rigby Fall 2021
      • Daniel Zhang Fall 2021
      • Erika Lutzner Fall 2021
      • Kindall Fredricks Fall 2021
      • Cin Salach Fall 2021
      • Andrew Zawacki Fall 2021
      • Micah Ruelle Fall 2021
      • Rachel Stempel Fall 2021
      • Haley Wooning Fall 2021
      • Rikki Santer Fall 2021
      • Evy Shen Fall 2021
      • Suzanne Frischkorn Fall 2021
      • Danielle Rose Fall 2021
      • Eric Burgoyne Fall 2021
      • John Cullen Fall 2021
      • Maureen Seaton Fall 2021
      • Hannah Stephens Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Nonfiction Fall 2021 >
      • Kevin Grauke Fall 2021
      • Courtney Justus Fall 2021
      • Amy Nicholson Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Fiction Fall 2021 >
      • Tina Jenkins Bell Fall 2021
      • David Obuchowski Fall 2021
      • Thomas Misuraca Fall 2021
      • Aiden Baker Fall 2021
      • Jenny Magnus Fall 2021
  • Issue 23 Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Art Spring 2022 >
      • Jonathan Kvassay Spring 2022
      • Karyna McGlynn Spring 2022
      • Andrea Kowch Spring 2022
      • Layla Garcia-Torres Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Poetry Spring 2022 >
      • Robin Gow Spring 2022
      • T.D. Walker Spring 2022
      • Jen Schalliol Huang Spring 2022
      • Yvonne Zipter Spring 2022
      • Carrie McGath Spring 2022
      • Lupita Eyde-Tucker Spring 2022
      • Susan L. Leary Spring 2022
      • Kate Sweeney Spring 2022
      • Rita Mookerjee Spring 2022
      • Erin Carlyle Spring 2022
      • Cori Bratty-Rudd Spring 2022
      • Jen Karetnick Spring 2022
      • Meghan Sterling Spring 2022
      • Lorelei Bacht Spring 2022
      • Michael Passafiume Spring 2022
      • Jeannine Hall Gailey Spring 2022
      • Phil Goldstein Spring 2022
      • Michael Mingo Spring 2022
      • Angie Macri Spring 2022
      • Martha Silano Spring 2022
      • Vismai Rao Spring 2022
      • Anna Laura Reeve Spring 2022
      • Jenny Irish Spring 2022
      • Marek Kulig Spring 2022
      • Jami Macarty Spring 2022
      • Sarah A. Rae Spring 2022
      • Brittney Corrigan Spring 2022
      • Callista Buchen Spring 2022
      • Issam Zineh Spring 2022
      • MICHAEL CHANG Spring 2022
      • henry 7. reneau, jr. Spring 2022
      • Leah Umansky Spring 2022
      • Cody Beck Spring 2022
      • Danyal Kim Spring 2022
      • Rachel DeWoskin Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Fiction Spring 2022 >
      • Melissa Boberg Spring 2022
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      • Srinaath Perangur Spring 2022
      • Audrey T. Carroll Spring 2022
  • Issue #24 Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Art Fall 2022 >
      • Marsha Solomon Fall 2022
      • Edward Lee Fall 2022
      • Harryette Mullen Fall 2022
      • Jezzelle Kellam Fall 2022
      • Irina Greciuhina Fall 2022
      • Natalie Christensen Fall 2022
      • Mark Yale Harris Fall 2022
      • Amy Nelder Fall 2022
      • Bette Ridgeway Fall 2022
      • Ursula Sokolowska Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Poetry Fall 2022 >
      • William Stobb Fall 2022
      • e Fall 2022
      • Stefanie Kirby Fall 2022
      • Lisa Ampleman Fall 2022
      • Will Cordeiro Fall 2022
      • Jesica Davis Fall 2022
      • Peter O'Donovan Fall 2022
      • Mackenzie Carignan Fall 2022
      • Jason Fraley Fall 2022
      • Barbara Saunier Fall 2022
      • Chad Weeden Fall 2022
      • Nick Rattner Fall 2022
      • Cynthia Schwartzberg Edlow Fall 2022
      • Summer J. Hart Fall 2022
      • Daniel Suá​rez Fall 2022
      • Sara Kearns Fall 2022
      • Millicent Borges Accardi Fall 2022
      • Liz Robbins Fall 2022
      • john compton Fall 2022
      • Esther Sadoff Fall 2022
      • Whitney Koo Fall 2022
      • W. J. Lofton Fall 2022
      • Rachel Reynolds Fall 2022
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      • Jennifer Martelli Fall 2022
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    • Issue #24 Nonfiction Fall 2022 >
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      • Anna Oberg Fall 2022
      • Acadia Currah Fall 2022