Kai Carlson-Wee
American Poet
BornMay 20, 1982 (age 41)
Minneapolis, Minnesota
EducationUniversity of Minnesota, University of Wisconsin, University of Oxford
Notable work'RAIL', 'Riding the Highline'
Websitewww.kaicarlsonwee.com

Kai Carlson-Wee is an American poet and filmmaker.[1] He is the author of the poetry collection RAIL, published by BOA Editions in 2018.[2] He is a Jones Lecturer in creative writing at Stanford University.[3]

Biography

Carlson-Wee was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of Lutheran pastors.[4] He has two younger brothers, poet Anders Carlson-Wee[5] and Olaf Carlson-Wee, entrepreneur and the founder of Polychain Capital.[6] After graduating from High School in Moorhead, Minnesota, Carlson-Wee moved to San Diego to pursue a career as a professional rollerblader.[4] He attended Grossmont Community College in El Cajon, before attending the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and St. Catherine's College at Oxford University, where he studied Romantic Poetry.[7] During his time in college, he struggled with mental health issues and was prescribed mood stabilizers and anti-psychotic medication, stating that after seven months of treatment, "my thoughts returned to normal and I was able to read again."[7] Following college, Carlson-Wee traveled extensively throughout the United States, train hopping, hitchhiking, road tripping, and hiking in the North Cascades.[7] He also traveled throughout Europe and lived at the Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris. In interviews, he has stated that traveling became the subject matter of much of his writing and filmmaking.[8]

Career and notable works

Carlson-Wee received an MFA in Poetry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2011.[9] He was awarded a Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University in 2011, and a Jones Lectureship in Poetry in 2013.[3] In 2014 he won the Editor's Prize from The Missouri Review,[10] and in 2023 he received a Pushcart Prize. Carlson-Wee's writing has been published in The Kenyon Review, Tin House, Ploughshares, The Academy of American Poets, Literary Hub, and The Southern Review.[3] His photography has been featured in Narrative Magazine. With his brother Anders, he has co-authored the chapbooks Mercy Songs and Two-Headed Boy.[11]

His debut collection of poems, RAIL, was published by BOA Editions in 2018, and was praised for its "authentic voice"[12] and "gritty" depictions of life on the road.[13] In the foreword to the book, Nick Flynn describes it as "biblical" and compares it to works by Larry Levis and Sam Shephard.[2] Publishers Weekly praised the book for its "un-performative americana" and moments of "brutal lyric beauty".[14] Campell McGrath named Carlson-Wee a "worthy inheritor" of "the great American bardic tradition", comparing him to Walt Whitman and Jack Kerouac.

His documentary film, Riding the Highline,[15] received the Special Jury Prize at the Napa Valley Film Festival,[5] the Audience Choice Award at the Arizona International Film Festival,[16] and the Shoestring Award at the Rochester International Film Festival.[17] The film follows Carlson-Wee and his brother hopping freight trains on the Burlington Highline route from Minneapolis, Minnesota to Wenatchee, Washington.

Writing approach and style

Carlson-Wee's writing explores themes of travel, mental health, and the myth of the American West.[18] He writes in a narrative lyric mode and employs long lines and anapestic meter to approximate the rhythm of a train.[19] Carlson-Wee has said he often writes while traveling,[18] and his poems are composed of "loose fragments" scribbled in his journals.[7] Carlson-Wee stated he's been influenced by the imagist poets, particularly the poet Robert Bly, who described his debut collection as "strong and inspired".[20] He has also been influenced by the dirty realism writers of the 1980s,[21] and by photographers such as Alec Soth and Michael Brodie.[22] He has been compared to Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen in his tales of "nomadic vagabonds" and "unmoored drifters searching for a home".,[23][24] and his work has been praised as an authentic depiction of rural lives and stories[14][24]

Awards and honors

Year Honor Medium Organization
2023 Pushcart Prize Poetry Pushcart Press
2018 Walter E. Dakin Fellowship Writing The Sewanee Writer's Workshop[25]
2018 Lynda Hull Memorial Prize Poetry Crazyhorse Magazine[26]
2018 Finalist for Balconies Prize Poetry Austin Community College[20]
2017 Best New Poets Poetry New England Review[27]
2017 Shoestring Award Film Rochester International Film Festival[17]
2017 Winter Story Contest (2nd Place) Writing Narrative Magazine[28]
2016 Award for Creative Achievement Film Arizona International Film Festival[8]
2015 Special Jury Prize for Innovation Film Napa Valley Film Fest[8]
2015 MacDowell Fellowship Writing MacDowell[29]
2014 Editor's Prize, The Missouri Review Writing The Missouri Review[10]
2013-

Present

 Jones Lectureship Writing Stanford University[3]
2011-

2013

 Wallace Stegner Fellowship Writing Stanford University[3]
2012 Dorothy Sargent Rosenburg Prize Poetry Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Fund[30][31]

References

  1. ↑ Poets, Academy of American. "Kai Carlson-Wee". Poets.org. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  2. 1 2 "Kai Carlson-Wee". BOA Editions, Ltd. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Kai Carlson-Wee | Department of English". english.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  4. 1 2 "Midwestern Gothic – A Literary Journal » Blog Archive » Interview: Anders and Kai Carlson-Wee". Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  5. 1 2 "Slice Magazine | An Interview with Anders Carlson-Wee, by Christopher Locke". Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  6. ↑ Staff, ByJonathan BurgosForbes. "Olaf Carlson-Wee". Forbes. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  7. 1 2 3 4 "Train-Hopping Gave Me Back My Life". Literary Hub. 2018-06-04. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  8. 1 2 3 "Where Poetry and Film Converge: An Interview With Kai Carlson-Wee – Vol. 1 Brooklyn". vol1brooklyn.com. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  9. ↑ "Kai Carlson-Wee". creativewritingmfa.info. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  10. 1 2 "Kai Carlson-Wee: "Jesse James Days" | The Missouri Review". Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  11. ↑ "Poetry's Radical Leap: An Interview with Kai and Anders Carslon-Wee by Cate Lycurgus | 32 Poems Magazine". 32poems.com. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  12. ↑ "Shelf Awareness for Readers for Friday, May 25, 2018". www.shelf-awareness.com. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  13. ↑ McKenna (2018-08-17). "Review: Rail by Kai Carlson-Wee". The Los Angeles Review. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  14. 1 2 "Rail by undefined". www.publishersweekly.com. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  15. ↑ "AmDocs Film Festival—Riding the Highline". We are moving stories. 2017-04-11. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  16. ↑ "Kai Carlson-Wee, Author at Atticus Review". Atticus Review. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  17. 1 2 "KAI CARLSON-WEE wins 2017 Shoestring Award". BOA Editions, Ltd. 2017-04-28. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  18. 1 2 "A Sense of Wholeness: An Interview with Kai Carlson-Wee". Great River Review. 2020-12-12. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  19. ↑ "A Writer's Insight: Kai Carlson-Wee". The Southern Review. April 9, 2018.
  20. 1 2 "Rail". BOA Editions, Ltd. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  21. ↑ January 19, Evan Karp /; YOURSELF, 2016 / Leave a comment / C4; Columns; Stuff, The Write (2016-01-19). "Kai Carlson-Wee on the Beauty of Not Really Knowing Who You Are". Litseen. Retrieved 2023-08-17.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  22. ↑ "Interview // Kai Carlson-Wee". 2015-09-08. Retrieved 2023-08-17.
  23. ↑ "Shelf Awareness for Readers for Friday, May 25, 2018". www.shelf-awareness.com. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  24. 1 2 "All Book Marks reviews for Rail by Kai Carlson-Wee". Book Marks. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  25. ↑ "Sewanee Writers' Conference • Right Here • The University of the South". www.sewaneewriters.org. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  26. ↑ "2018 Crazyhorse Prize Winners & Finalists – swamp pink". swamp-pink.cofc.edu. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  27. ↑ "NER Award Winners". New England Review. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  28. ↑ "Kai Carlson-Wee | Narrative Magazine". www.narrativemagazine.com. 2014-08-27. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  29. ↑ "Kai Carlson-Wee - Artist". MacDowell. Retrieved 2023-08-17.
  30. ↑ "Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry-Prizes". dorothyprizes.org. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  31. ↑ "AWP: Directory of Members". www.awpwriter.org. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
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