Reexamining the West with Paisley Rekdal

Delve into the history of the West through the lens of railroad workers’ histories and through the railroad’s impact on America with a dynamic, inter-media live presentation from award-winning poet and scholar Paisley Rekdal. A moderated discussion with 516 ARTS curator Olivia Amaya Ortiz will follow the presentation at FUSION | 708 in Downtown Albuquerque.

In 2018, Rekdal was commissioned as Utah’s Poet Laureate to write a poem commemorating the 150th anniversary of the transcontinental completion. The result was “West: A Translation,” a linked collection of poems that respond to a Chinese elegy carved into the walls of the Angel Island Immigration Station where Chinese migrants to the United States were detained. Existing both as an interactive website and as a book published by Copper Canyon Press, “West: A Translation” features poetry, lyric essays, and video.

Rekdal is the director of the University of Utah’s American West Center and is the author of four books of nonfiction and seven collections of poetry. “West: A Translation” was long-listed for the 2024 National Book Award in Poetry, and was the winner of the 2024 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and the 2024 Reading the West Award in Poetry.