BINDERY: Kai Carlson-Wee / Rail

Thursday, April 26, 2018 - 7:30pm to 9:00pm
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The Bindery hosts a launch for Kai Carlson-Wee's first full-length poetry collection, Rail. Reading with Kai are Catherine PondCate Lycurgus, and Austin Smith -- join us!

 

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.

 

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Kai Carlson-Wee is the author of Rail (BOA, 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, 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, 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 is a lecturer at Stanford University.

 

Catherine Pond's poems and essays have appeared in over thirty magazines, such as Boston Review, Narrative, and Rattle. She lives in Los Angeles, where she is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Southern California.

 

Cate Lycurgus’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in American Poetry ReviewTin House, Gulf Coast, and elsewhere. A 2014 Ruth Lilly Fellowship Finalist, she has also received scholarships from Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers’ Conferences and was recently named one of Narrative’s 30 Under 30 Featured Writers. Cate currently lives south of San Francisco, California, where she conducts interviews for 32 Poems and teaches professional writing. 

 

Austin Smith grew up on a dairy farm in Illinois. His poems and stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, Poetry Magazine, Narrative, VQR, and ZYZZYVA. His first collection of poems, Almanac, was chosen by Paul Muldoon for the Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets, and his second collection, Flyover Country, is forthcoming in the fall.

 

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Please note: This event will be at the Bindery, 1727 Haight. RSVP appreciated but not required.

 

This is an all ages event. The bar opens at 7, event begins at 7:30pm.

 

If you cannot attend the event but would like to request a signed copy of Rail, and/or any of the authors' books, order below and put your request in the comments field. 

Books: 
Rail By Kai Carlson-Wee Cover Image
$16.00
ISBN: 9781942683582
Availability: Out of Stock - Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: BOA Editions - April 24th, 2018

Almanac By Austin Smith Cover Image
$14.95
ISBN: 9780691159195
Availability: Out of Stock - Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Princeton University Press - September 23rd, 2013