Water Guest by Caroline M Mar

Water Guest by Caroline M Mar

Lake Tahoe: home of the Washoe Tribe, a shining blue jewel that crowns the Sierra Nevada, and a beloved American vacation destination made accessible by the transcontinental railroad built largely by Chinese laborers. This gorgeous location forms the site from which Caroline M. Mar’s stunning collection, Water Guest, attempts to reconcile issues of identity, ownership, and place. The poems wander through Mar’s attempts to locate herself geographically, genealogically, and etymologically. A direct ancestor was a railroad laborer; is that why her love for the land feels older than herself? Or is it the siren call of the deep, clear water?

Raising questions of inheritance, the conundrum of land ownership, and the violence of history, Mar gives voice to the lost writing of Chinese laborers and silent communion to those of us still here—immigrant and Indigenous, settler and resister. This beautiful collection finds acceptance, if not resolution, through the questions themselves.

Caroline M. Mar is the great-granddaughter of a railroad laborer and the author of Special Education and the chapbook Dream of the Lake. A high school health educator in her hometown of San Francisco, she is getting to know her new home of Oakland. A member of Rabble Collective, she has been granted residencies at Storyknife, Ragdale, and Hedgebrook, among others.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780299352646
ISBN 10	0299352641
Title	Water Guest
Author	Caroline M Mar
Series	Wisconsin Poetry Series
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	University of Wisconsin Press
Year published	2025-05-31
Number of pages	104
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.