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Copyright © 2025 Terry Allen

Enjoy this You-Tube reading from “Waiting on the Last Train”. First a description of the YouTube reading:

David Jibson, Editor of Third Wednesday: A Quarterly Journal of Literary & Visual Arts, created opportunities for writers who have published with them to promote their new books by spreading the news in three ways. They post an announcement on the 3rd Wednesday website and on their Facebook page under “Contributor Book Listing.” Writers can request a 10- to 15-minute reading with the editor over Zoom or schedule a live virtual one-hour program for a release party over Zoom. If you haven’t checked out 3rd Wednesday, you might want to do so. They accept submissions of poetry and prose and have a rapid response time. The following video is the one I did to promote my poetry and to feature some works from Waiting on the Last Train. In it, I read six poems: “The Things They Left Behind,” “Woodpeckers,” “Nutso,” “Aunt Gracie,” “Name That Dog,” and “Still in His Cups, Bacchus Looked Down from Mount Olympus and Laughed.”

Available in Paperback Format on Amazon

Amazon Description

Trains have forged a deep bond in our psyche. They foreshadow arrival, departure, celebration, anguish, hello/goodbye, tears of joy/sorrow, and pull along all the heavy freight of a lifetime. In Terry Allen’s book, Waiting On The Last Train, the reader will find all of these mile markers and milestones. These poems adhere to a tight schedule, delivering to the reader the many confusions of life and politics, along with the backstory of an aging couple who are lovingly engaged in the world. Allen is well-practiced and knows that we put one foot in front of the other just as we put one poem in front of the other, each leading us a little farther down the tracks. Whether we live in The Show-Me State or as his wife says The Draw-Me-a-Picture State, we must hurry to the platform, Waiting On the Last Train, is ready to leave the station and take us on the ride of our lives.

Author Biography

Terry Allen is an emeritus professor of Theatre Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, where he taught acting, directing and playwriting. He is the author of five poetry collections: Monsters in the Rain, Art Work, Waiting on the Last Train, Rubber Time, and Preserving the Past for the Present. His poems have appeared in many journals, including I-70 Review, Third Wednesday, The Main Street Rag, Still Point Arts Quarterly, and Popshot Quarterly. In addition, his work has been nominated for an Eric Hoffer Book Award, a Best of the Net Award, and a Pushcart Prize.