Train-Hopping Brothers Share Poems, Stories, Documentary

Poets, part time nomads, documentary filmmakers and brothers Anders and Kai Carlson-Wee spoke at last Friday’s assembly about their freight train-hopping adventures across the country. In addition to reciting some of their poetry, the brothers also shared their short film “Riding the Highline,” which documents their experience hopping trains in 2013 and which won the Special Jury Prize for Innovation in Documentary Short Film at the 2015 Napa Valley Film Festival.

Anders Carlson-Wee is a 2016 McKnight artist fellow, a New Delta Review’s 2014 Editor’s Choice Prize and the author of Dynamite, which received first place in the 2015 Frost Place Chapbook Competition. His brother, Kai Carlson-Wee, received his BA in English from the University of Minnesota and his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and the Sewanee Writer's Conference. Kai is currently a lecturer of poetry at Stanford University.

“They are evidence that art and literature can be living, breathing experiences, not just dusty relics on a shelf.”

The brothers, who are Minnesota natives, first discovered their love for film through shooting skate videos. While filming videos of themselves rollerblading, Anders and Kai began studying literature and art, focusing on the aesthetics of their poetry and photos while keeping themselves open to the world around them.

English Instructor Jason BreMiller recalls first crossing paths with the brothers ten years ago at Holden Village, a small and quirky community in the North Cascade mountains of Washington. “They were just out of high school, and they were working as professional rollerbladers. Their whole (schtick) was removing rollerblading from an urban context and trying to place it in the wilderness,” he said. “They would use natural features to navigate and do tricks, then film and write about it.”

BreMiller and the Carlson-Wee brothers kept in touch over the years, even as the brothers left rollerblading to study and become full-time poets. Over the years, the brothers gained recognition and praise for their work, especially their poetry. Two years ago, they crossed paths with another Exeter English Instructor, Matthew Miller, at the Sewanee Writer’s Conference.

The decision to invite the Carlson-Wee brothers to Exeter arose from the desire to promote writing on campus, and to introduce the student body to a different ideal of success. “Mr. Miller and I know that our students are very engaged in and thoughtful about writing in general. But we thought that Anders and Kai would offer a different model of being in the world than what our students have been taught to embrace,” BreMiller said. “Exeter tends to reinforce a pretty typical life path...what Anders and Kai have done is to cultivate a less predictable existence. They are also committed to seeking adventure, improvising, and using that spontaneity as their fuel, their catalyst for writing.”

Miller also described the brothers as “talented poets and just good souls,” and said that the thought that the brothers would mix well with the community and offer a fresh outlook on not only life but on literature. “They are evidence that art and literature can be living, breathing experiences, not just dusty relics on a shelf,” he said.

The short documentary “Riding the Highline” portrays the spiritual elements and the lifestyle of train riding while highlighting the picturesque landscape of the country as the brothers write poetry based on their experience of train-hopping. Senior Athena Gerasoulis described the film as being “well done,” and recalled feeling impressed that the brothers had managed to make such an interesting film with such minimal cinematic background. “It captured both of them really well because it made seemingly ordinary moments of them just sitting there, enjoying nature, and turned it into something really significant about adventure and self-motivation and discovery,” she said. “It also inspired me particularly, because I want to go into the film industry, and it’s something that seems really daunting, to want to become a filmmaker. But they simplified it in a way that makes it all about personal passion, and enjoying nature.”

The brothers also held a reading and re-screening of the film later that day in the Assembly Hall. Senior Majestic Terhune, who attended their poetry reading along with Gerasoulis, felt inspired by the brothers’ poems because of their detailed retelling of intimate moments in their lives. “In terms of the poetry, I don’t really understand poetry, or where it comes from. So I was interested in hearing about how they decided to format everything, and asking them about the process of writing poetry,” Terhune said. “I really enjoyed that it was two people, two brothers doing it because they talked about writing their poems as a dialogue, which they showed in the reading.”

Lower Tara Weil expressed her appreciation of the brothers’ work as a different perspective much needed at Exeter. “I really liked it, because usually, we hear about these people who are trying to discover the cure for cancer, but this is just a group of people who are a little more (casual),” she said. “They have a different experience, a different perspective, and it’s good to hear both sides.”