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, 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.
WEST: A Translation is published by Copper Canyon Press
full website: https://westtrain.org/
WEST is dedicated to Corky Lee, with whom the poet consulted as she prepared the poem.