Poetry of Trains

The mythology of the Train, the Railroad, those two shiny tracks running off into the far distance is a powerful symbol of the industrial age.The train was the first mass transit system to network the land and to carry people and materials of every class and of every shape. A sort of democracy with the only requirement of use being the price of a ticket.Poets who grew up with this pulsating leviathan of industry were quick to see its merits for their own lines and verse. Across these poems comes both an individual eye across a wide range of feelings, thoughts and ideas as well as, occasionally, the trainspotter's delight for form and detail from poets such as Emily Dickinson, Thomas Hardy, Edward Thomas, Edna St Vincent Millay, Damon Runyon and a host of others.