The Low Passions

March 18, 2019
The debut from Carlson-Wee (whose poem “How-To” in the Nation was the subject of controversy last year) is restless and searching, taking readers through the truck cabs, living rooms, dumpsters, freight yards, and railways of America’s wide middle, a place where “Each day against all this/ breaking news, another stranger saving you.” With a strong eye for fleshing out character in a few simple lines, Carlson-Wee introduces the reader to pastors, bosses, one crazy cousin in Fargo (poems about whom recur throughout the book as both comic relief and a source of despair), a “father walking into every dream,” and a brother who is a burden, blessing, and companion. Violence pervades the collection, with brothers lashing out against each other both as children and adults. The kindness of strangers and the pride of a hardscrabble ethos are recurring themes, as in the poem “Pride,” in which Carlson-Wee tallies the value of the food for which he’s just dumpster dived while strolling through the store. Readers looking for a dose of Americana will feel like they’re beside Carlson-Wee, catching “a ride from a farmer hauling a trailer/ stacked with hay bales three-high. When he asks me/ where I’m going I say as far as you can take me.”

March 1, 2019
Trekking across the United States and writing about the experience is a booming literary genre. Carlson-Wee debuts his collection of versed experiences in the same vein, though without the typical romanticized glory. The poet travels with his brother, scavenges for food in grocery-store garbage bins, hops freight trains, listens to denizens toiling through life, and repeatedly visits an outspoken cousin, Josh. The poems Carlson-Wee writes to give voice to the often overlooked have the most impact. Lyle Clears My Throat portrays a scene in which Lyle is trying to get situated to listen to the poet but explains that he has to roll my mother / every half hour or so to curb bedsores, / but I wanna hear this story. Some poems read almost like transcripts. Ms. Range Wants to See Me in It is a simple oration of a mother who lost her son in an unspecified war, who sees the poet as a doppelg�nger of her departed. Submerging his own voice, Carlson-Wee creates a harrowing tribute to the people he met.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)