''Iron Horse'' is a poem written by

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

. It is an important part of his '' The Fall of America: Poems of These States'' sequence of poems written in the mid-to-late 1960s. ''Iron Horse'' was published in January 1973 by Coach House Press of Toronto, Canada. Also in 1973 in Göttingen, Germany by Udo Breger's Expanded Media Editions. The first American edition was a 1974 booklet by

City Lights Bookstore City Lights is an independent bookstore-publisher combination in San Francisco, California, that specializes in world literature, the arts, and progressive politics. It also houses the nonprofit City Lights Foundation, which publishes selected tit ...

in San Francisco.

Content

The first part of ''Iron Horse'' was composed July 22, 1966, as Ginsberg rode a train from the West Coast to

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. It was initially dictated to tape and later transcribed. The second part of the poem takes place on a

Greyhound bus Greyhound Lines, Inc. (commonly known as simply Greyhound) operates the largest intercity bus service in North America, including Greyhound Mexico. It also operates charter bus services, Amtrak Thruway services, commuter bus services, and pac ...

. The poem is typified by its fluctuating observations, and uses many of the same devices and expressions found in other poems in ''The Fall of America''. Some of the topics Ginsberg touches upon in the poem include: a group of soldiers riding the train some of them probably on their way to

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

and their mentality; a nostalgic feeling for his past and youth, ruminations on his own public persona, entertaining the thought of retiring to some solitary life; current events, headlines, conversations (overheard or imaginary) taking place on the train, and sights; both on and off the train.

Notes

*Schumacher, Michael. (1992) ''Dharma Lion''. St. Martins Press, New York. {{Allen Ginsberg

Iron Horse ''Iron horse'' is an iconic literary term (considered by the early 21st century to be transitioning into an archaic reference) for a steam locomotive, originating in the early 1800s, when horses still powered most machinery. The term was common ...

Vietnam War poems 1973 poems 1973 books Coach House Press books