Thanks to Hieu Minh Nguyen, Scott Lyon, Michael Bazzett, Leila Chatti, Danez Smith, Matt Rasmussen, Angel Nafis, Michael Torres, Tiana Clark, Gretchen Marquette, Noah Stetzer, Max McDonough, Matthew Wimberley, Javier Zamora, Matthew Baker, William Brewer, Cate Lycurgus, Brandon Courtney, Malachi Black, Simone Wolff, Alicia Brandewie, and Dan Haney—for your friendship and close readings of these poems.
My deepest thanks to Bryan Schutmaat for the cover image.
My deepest thanks to Mary Austin Speaker for her design.
My deepest thanks to Todd Boss for lighting the torch and making my biggest dream come true.
My deepest thanks to my editor, Jill Bialosky, for believing in my work and giving it the best possible home.
All my gratitude and love to Edgar Kunz.
All my gratitude and love to Anessa Ibrahim.
All my gratitude and love to Mom, Dad, Kai, and Olaf—for everything.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ANDERS CARLSON-WEE is the son of two Lutheran pastors. He was a professional rollerblader before he studied wilderness survival and started hopping freight trains to see the country. Staying in the homes of strangers along the way, he has bicycled across the United States twice, hitchhiked to the Yukon and back, and walked on foot across Croatia and Bosnia through the farm villages of the Dinaric Alps. The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the McKnight Foundation, the Camargo Foundation, the Frost Place, Bread Loaf, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, he has published work in The Nation, BuzzFeed, The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Tin House, Poetry Daily, New England Review, The Sun, Best New Poets, Best of the Net, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. With his brother Kai Carlson-Wee, he is coauthor of two chapbooks and codirector of the award-winning poetry film Riding the Highline. His debut chapbook, Dynamite, won the Frost Place Chapbook Prize. Anders is the winner of Ninth Letter’s Poetry Award, Blue Mesa Review’s Poetry Prize, New Delta Review’s Editors’ Choice Prize, and the 2017 Poetry International Prize. His work has been translated into Chinese. He holds an MFA from Vanderbilt University and lives in Minneapolis.
www.anderscarlsonwee.com
Also by Anders Carlson-Wee
Dynamite
Mercy Songs (with Kai Carlson-Wee)
Two-Headed Boy (with Kai Carlson-Wee)
Copyright © 2019 by Anders Carlson-Wee
All rights reserved
First Edition
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as
follows:Names: Carlson-Wee, Anders, author.
Title: The low passions : poems / Anders Carlson-Wee.
Description: First edition. | New York : W. W. Norton & Company,
[2019] | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018046579 | ISBN 9780393652383 (hardcover)
Classification: LCC PS3603.A7534 L69 2019 | DDC 811/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018046579
ISBN 9780393652390 (ebook)
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The Low Passions Page 6