Punctuated by historical images and told through multiple voices,
languages, literary forms and documents, West: A Translation explores
what unites and divides America, drawing a powerful, necessary
connection between the completion of the transcontinental railroad and
the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882-1943).
In 2018, Utah Poet Laureate Paisley Rekdal was commissioned to write a
poem commemorating the 150th anniversary of the transcontinental
railroad. The result is West: A Translation--an unflinching hybrid
collection of poems and essays that draws a powerful, necessary
connection between the railroad's completion and the Chinese Exclusion
Act (1882-1943). Carved into the walls of the Angel Island Immigration
Station, where Chinese migrants to the United States were detained
during the Chinese Exclusion Act, is a poem elegizing a detainee who
committed suicide. As West translates this anonymous Chinese elegy
character by character, what's left is a haunting narrative distilled
through the history and lens of transcontinental railroad workers, and a
sweeping exploration of the railroad's cultural impact on America.
Punctuated by historical images and told through multiple voices,
languages, literary forms and documents, West explores what unites and
divides America, and how our ideas about American history creep forward,
even as the nation itself constantly threatens to spiral back.
West is accompanied by a website (www.westtrain.org) which features
video poems and encourages self-exploration of the transcontinental
railroad's history through an interactive, non-linear structure. Pairing
this urgent book and innovative website, Rekdal masterfully challenges
how histories themselves get written and disseminated. The result is a
tour de force of resistance and resilience.
