Kai Carlson-Wee is an American poet and filmmaker. He is the author of the poetry collection RAIL, published by BOA Editions in 2018. He is a Jones Lecturer in creative writing at Stanford University.
Biography Carlson-Wee was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of Lutheran pastors. He has two younger brothers, poet Anders Carlson-Wee and Olaf Carlson-Wee, entrepreneur and the founder of Polychain Capital. After graduating from High School in Moorhead, Minnesota, Carlson-Wee moved to San Diego to pursue a career as a professional rollerblader. 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. 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." Following college, Carlson-Wee traveled extensively throughout the United States, train hopping, hitchhiking, road tripping, and hiking in the North Cascades. 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.
Career and notable works Carlson-Wee received an MFA in Poetry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2011. He was awarded a Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University in 2011, and a Jones Lectureship in Poetry in 2013. In 2014 he won the Editor's Prize from The Missouri Review, 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. His photography has been featured in Narrative Magazine. With his brother Anders, he has co-authored the chapbooks Mercy Songs and Two-Headed Boy.
His debut collection of poems, RAIL, was published by BOA Editions in 2018, and was praised for its "authentic voice" and "gritty" depictions of life on the road. In the foreword to the book, Nick Flynn describes it as "biblical" and compares it to works by Larry Levis and Sam Shephard. Publishers Weekly praised the book for its "un-performative americana" and moments of "brutal lyric beauty". 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, received the Special Jury Prize at the Napa Valley Film Festival, the Audience Choice Award at the Arizona International Film Festival, and the Shoestring Award at the Rochester International Film Festival. 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. He writes in a narrative lyric mode and employs long lines and anapestic meter to approximate the rhythm of a train. Carlson-Wee has said he often writes while traveling, and his poems are composed of "loose fragments" scribbled in his journals. 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". He has also been influenced by the dirty realism writers of the 1980s, and by photographers such as Alec Soth and Michael Brodie. He has been compared to Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen in his tales of "nomadic vagabonds" and "unmoored drifters searching for a home", and his work has been praised as an authentic depiction of rural lives and stories.
Awards and honors +YearHonorMediumOrganization2023Pushcart PrizePoetryPushcart Press2018Walter E. Dakin FellowshipWritingThe Sewanee Writer's Workshop2018Lynda Hull Memorial PrizePoetryCrazyhorse Magazine2018Finalist for Balconies PrizePoetryAustin Community College2017Best New PoetsPoetryNew England Review2017Shoestring AwardFilmRochester International Film Festival2017Winter Story Contest (2nd Place)WritingNarrative Magazine2016Award for Creative AchievementFilmArizona International Film Festival2015Special Jury Prize for InnovationFilmNapa Valley Film Fest2015MacDowell FellowshipWritingMacDowell2014Editor's Prize, The Missouri ReviewWritingThe Missouri Review2013- PresentJones LectureshipWritingStanford University2011- 2013Wallace Stegner FellowshipWritingStanford University2012Dorothy Sargent Rosenburg PrizePoetryDorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Fund
References
External links 'Train-Hopping Gave Me Back My Life', Literary Hub 'A Sense of Wholeness: An Interview with Kai Carlson-Wee', Great River Review 'Where Poetry and Film Converge: An Interview with Kai Carlson-Wee', No.1 Brooklyn '"Riding the Highline", Kai Carlson-Wee, Atticus Review. November 17, 2017.