West: A Translation
Copper Canyon Press
$26.00
You can purchase a copy here.
Reviewed by Jennifer Schneider
In West: A Translation, Paisley Rekdal shares an unforgettable collection of work, in poetic, visual, and essay forms. The hybrid text is the culmination of a project that first began in 2018 when Rekdal was commissioned to author a poem to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Transcontinental Railroad and one that will serve as a powerful teacher, and anchor of truth and history, long into the future.
West: A Translation revisits and reveals historical realities through personal stories, visual illustrations, photographs, and collections of documents that weave together, in complex and layered ways, the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, the political and cultural realities of the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882 - 1943), and the harshness of American history. Pieces spotlight the voices, lived experiences, and violations of transcontinental railroad workers, Chinese immigrants, detainees, and other impacted parties in ways that reveal, perhaps as no other work has before, the tensions, hidden truths, and challenges that time can never heal and that are deeply embedded in the realities of a collective past.
The work translates, via a single Chinese character at a time, “Notes Toward an Untranslated Country”, an anonymous Chinese poem that had been carved into a wall of the Angel Island Immigration Station. The station served as the California detention center for Chinese immigrants to the United States. It was a site of deep heartbreak and harm, including extended detentions as well as suicides. For each character of the poem, Rekdal’s translation opens windows, accessible in ways never before, to a range of emotions, complex and layered, and experiences that extend far beyond any one voice or reality. The pieces humanize experiences in ways only poetry can and simultaneously span and expand upon a spectrum of human suffering as captured, conveyed, and retold throughout the collection.
The pieces are as detailed and expertly researched as they are sweeping commentaries that lift curtains, heavy in weight and time waiting, on long-concealed truths. Each poem works in, and of, multiple layers to spotlight, raise awareness, and crystallize collective experiences and loss as the voices featured in individual pieces travel alongside the railroad’s history. Individual poems, which vary in form and style, are accompanied by poignant and powerful images and detailed explanatory notes that inform and inspire, while also serving simultaneously as a critical reminder of, and educational tool for, histories that are often underexplored.
噩耗 Sorrowful News
Sorrowful news sings the telegram
and Lincoln’s body slides from DC
to Springfield, his third son, Willie,
boxed beside him….
裹 Wrap
Dear Margaret: It is called Scarletteena the disorder
is all in the throat. The boy I said
is a son of Henry’s that lives with us
he has another James lives with his mother
this boy is about 8 years the other between 6 and 7
Dear Margaret I cannot find words to express
at all times in sickness in death Dear Margaret
We are sorry about your house being burned
we hope you have got another
思鄉 Miss Home
Ways to die: blasting accident, derailment,
border crack. Crushed between trains crossing
in the night. Electrocution,
bad food, heart attack. You can work
yourself to death…
when we hit Rock Springs? Don’t you miss
your home?
Miss home? I told him.
I’m hoping to miss it entirely.
The work’s epigraph – “It is impossible to grieve in the first-person singular” (Cristina Rivera Garza) orients and situates the work as a testament to the human spirit and the collective nature of loss, labor, struggle, and suffering. Essays and extended notes detail the often hidden and haunting history and development of the railroad. Violations are described throughout, in connection with both translation (see, for example, p. 125) and humanity (see all), as well as the work itself (125).
In spaces where oppression meets resistance, suffering meets innate curiosity, and humanity confronts the harsh realities of history, West: A Translation transports as it informs and creates a visceral experience alongside an exquisitely painted landscape of poetic prowess. Sorrow is exquisitely captured in sweeping brush strokes that pair varied voices, blend literary styles, languages, and documents, and paint a masterpiece in hybrid form. The expertly researched and documented poems and essays are paired with an associated website where video poems extend the experience in immersive and multi-sensory ways. See: https://westtrain.org/
The collection highlights the extraordinary power of poetry to not only promote more intentional grounding in the present but also as a powerful teacher of the past. West: A Translation elevates and expands the hybrid form and takes readers on a journey across time and physical space, while also creating an anchor to which readers can regularly return for extended learning. Future readers, enjoy the journey that is West: A Translation and this remarkable collection of history.
Jen Schneider is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. She loves words, experimental poetry, and the change of seasons. She’s also a fan of late nights, crossword puzzles, and compelling underdogs. She has authored several chapbooks and full-length poetry collections, with stories, poems, and essays published in a variety of literary and scholarly journals. Sample works include Invisible Ink, On Habits & Habitats, On Daily Puzzles: (Un)locking Invisibility, A Collection of Recollections, and Blindfolds, Bruises, and Breakups. She is currently working on her first series, which (not surprisingly) includes a novel in verse. She is the 2022-2023 Montgomery County PA Poet Laureate.