Whether it’s the classic steamer billowing smoke, or the sleek modern rail hurtling along at high speed, trains can be evocative literal or mythic presences. In Mervyn Taylor’s “Last Train,” they characterize the poet’s rail-worker father, symbolize the passage of time, serve as a vehicle of memory, and even as a metaphor for poetry itself. Write a poem that engages a train in some way– see where it takes you!

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Read more in this issue: Interview | Critical Essay | Poems