
I’m thrilled to announce the launch of Last Train Home, a new collection of haiku, tanka, and rengay celebrating train travel! The book is edited by me, with contributions from poets around the world.
Over the past year, many of us have had to cancel trips and stay close to home. But there are no limits to where our imaginations can take us. Last Train Home is an invitation to remember past trips, and imagine the sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and emotions others have experienced crossing the Canadian prairies or the Australian Outback, climbing China’s Yellow Mountain, travelling at night between Paris and Madrid, glimpsing Mount Fuji, stopping at border crossings, and so much more. It also looks forward to when we can once again travel freely, get together with family and friends, meet new people, and explore new places.
In the meantime, I’d like to welcome you on a virtual train tour, beginning with a photo of sunrise from Saskatoon station on my first cross-Canada VIA Rail trip back in the mid-1980s. The haiku that follows speaks to more recent experience on the same train—sharing a dining table with different passengers each day.

sunrise across the dining car an exchange of hometowns Jacquie Pearce

And a few more selections from the book: Paris to Milan train the baby cries in every language Karen Hoy departing Valencia as my vacation ends scent of oranges Roberta Beach Jacobson dark night a migrant catching sleep on the last train Adjei Agyei-Baah
Last Train Home is available on Amazon in various countries. You can also drop into the Last Train Home -haiku Facebook page for more poems, photos, and stories related to the book and train travel in general.
To keep the virtual train going, I’m inviting other creative writing bloggers to share their train stories and photos and link back here.
Next stops on the tour:
March 21, 2021 at 11:08 pm |
This is really exciting! Congratulations on the publication. I can’t wait to let the trains take my imagination away.
March 22, 2021 at 1:12 am |
I’m delighted to have haiku in this book and to be part of the virtual train tour! Thanks for putting this all together!
Juliet
http://craftygreenpoet.blogspot.com
March 22, 2021 at 8:21 am |
I ordered the train anthology promptly as I love reading poems about trains, journeys, and their stations.
A big thank you to the poets in the book!
warm regards,
Alan Summers
co-founder, Call of the Page
March 22, 2021 at 9:29 am |
Great anthology Jacquie – as someone who works in the rail industry, I’m particularly please to have some haiku published in this.
March 22, 2021 at 9:44 am |
Thanks, everyone! As the editor, I’ve read all the poems many times, and I still enjoy them all–and the feeling of resonance from one to the other.
March 22, 2021 at 12:02 pm |
This is such a neat idea. I came here from Juliet Wilson’s post on the book. One of these days I will do a trans-Canada trip. I have taken the train out of the north of Canada following a canoe trip once and have done many cross-country trips in the US as well as in other countries.
March 22, 2021 at 12:46 pm |
Thanks for stopping by. Btw, the train between Toronto and Vancouver has the best dining car service (with an actual chef onboard)–as well as some great scenery, of course!
March 22, 2021 at 1:04 pm |
Dear Jacquie…it’s wonderful to be on board this lovely train with so many wonderful poets and poems. What a feat! I love it…an anthology to treasure for years to come. Memories of my own flood back to me reading the poems within the pages. Congratulations! On this wonderful book, and more to come from your new press.
March 22, 2021 at 1:35 pm |
Thanks, Carole! So glad you’re enjoying the book!
March 22, 2021 at 3:23 pm |
KOYO
Fall path unwinds
Poplar manes translucent
Railroad staccato
River stares back
Beckons through weeping glass
Swollen her womb
Woods surrender
Stripped off is ballroom gown
Night bares all
© Marina Talmacci October 2020
March 22, 2021 at 6:16 pm |
Thanks for sharing, Marina 🙂
March 24, 2021 at 2:05 am |
I have been so busy, but I want to say thank you again for including me in this beautiful anthology. I’m enjoying my copy now! 🙂
March 24, 2021 at 11:47 am |
Thanks, Chrissi!
April 9, 2021 at 1:06 pm |
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