Paisley Rekdal  is the author of four books of nonfiction and seven collections of poetry, including Animal Eye, winner of the UNT Rilke Prize; Imaginary Vessels, finalist for the 2018 Kingsley Tufts Prize; Nightingale, winner of the 2020 Washington State Book Award for Poetry; and West: A Translation, which was longlisted for the 2023 National Book Award in Poetry and won the 2024 Kingsley Tufts Prize. Her newest works of nonfiction include a book-length essay, The Broken Country: On Trauma, a Crime, and the Continuing Legacy of Vietnam and Appropriate: A Provocation. She guest edited Best American Poetry 2020.  A pedagogy book is forthcoming: Real Toads: Imaginary Gardens: On Reading and Writing Poetry Forensically (W.W. Norton).

Her work has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship, a Civitella Ranieri Residency, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Pushcart Prizes (2009, 2013), Narrative's Poetry Prize, the AWP Creative Nonfiction Prize, and various state arts council awards. Her poems and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, Poetry, The New Republic, Tin House, the Best American Poetry series (2012, 2013, 2017, 2018, 2019), and on National Public Radio, among others.

She is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Utah, where she directs the American West Center. She is also the creator and editor of West: A Translation, as well as the community web projects Mapping Literary Utah and Mapping Salt Lake City. She has been a Distinguished Visiting Professor at both Stanford and the Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program. Between 2017-2022, she served as Utah's Poet Laureate, receiving a 2019 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. She currently serves as poetry editor for High Country News, and as co-chair of PEN America's Utah Chapter.
 

Synopsis

The SUU Eccles APEX presentation on October 17 featured Poet Paisley Rekdal. Her presentation was titled “West: A Translation”.

Paisley Rekdal has authored multiple non-fiction books and several collections of poetry, her most recent titled Real Toads, Imaginary Gardens: On Reading and Writing Poetry Forensically. Her work, West: A Translation was the subject of her presentation.

Rekdal began sharing background of West: A Translation, stating that from 2017-2022 she was asked to write a poem commemorating the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad; the final spike going in on May 10, 1869, in Promontory Summit, Utah. Rekdal wanted to put the Chinese experience at the forefront, as many of the Central Pacific Railroad workers were of Chinese descent. 

Rekdal admitted that she faced a roadblock, as there were little to no written letters or accounts from the Chinese workers, but that some Chinese immigrants turned to carving poetry. Rekdal also stated that unfortunately, we don’t really know why there aren’t letters or accounts from the Chinese workers. Rekdal shared the website she made for West: A Translation, and asked for 3 choices from the audience on what poems she would share. The audience chose poems about Chinese death rituals, impeachment, and biracial journalists. 

Rekdal shared the poem about Chinese death rituals, as well as some background information. She shared that the Central Pacific Railroad kept no casualty records, and that the bones of the deceased would be broken down into boxes and sent to Hong Kong to be given back to the family. She also discussed the role of biracial journalists in the 19th century, as well as presidential impeachment, drawing a line between President Johnson and President Trump. She shared a concurrent poem with speeches from both presidents, noting the similarity. Rekdal admitted she was surprised how many overlaps she found in her research between the late 19th century and 2019.

Rekdal was very honest about the struggles she faced in the research process for West: A Translation, noting that the Central Pacific archive went through several ownerships, then to the Union Pacific archive. She stated that there were “boxes and boxes of things, not all digitized”, as “there hasn’t been, historically, a real interest in getting those letters out there”. 

Rekdal did share that in her research process she found some very interesting Chinese records, from “phrase books for immigrants, dealing with police, getting mugged and robbed, how to deal with getting arrested”. Rekdal noted that although there are limited written records, the Chinese were communicating, and that “oral history keeps what archives don’t”. She stated that “the archive is nothing but fragmentation”, and that “you get to put pieces together” to form a narrative.

Rekdal concluded her presentation by emphasizing the ultimate theme of her work and West: A Translation, asking “how many other stories do we not know? How can we change our view of the past?”