Train Romance

In this collection of poems and images, Cat Weaver, Ken Silvestri, and Natasha Rabin explore the enchantment trains can bring. Trains share in the big and small events of people's lives, and remembered moments in them are depicted here as haunting, bittersweet, quietly nostalgic, and gently comic.

"Train Romance" is a breathtaking book of poetry in which three poets have wedded a love of trains with their different poetic styles and a shared sense of rushing through space on a journey that may change one's life.

In this volume, readers will hear the moan of a train's faraway whistle touching hearts with its sound of longing. They will enter spaces where the features of strangers open possibilities rather than represent closure. They will feel the rush of the great machine as it passes one by in a gust of wind on the platform. And they will be invited to recall or imagine the uncanny beauty of being inside something that carries them through the night, along tracks which, deep under their pillows, rhythmically click away the unseen distances.

KEN SILVESTRI was raised in Paterson, New Jersey where the poetry of William Carlos Williams, Allen Ginsberg, and Maria Mazziotti Gillan found their way through the industrial cracks. Three major railroads and seven stations provided an endless multitude of locomotive sounds. His poems have been published in the "Paterson Literary Review", "The Great Falls Anthology" and "LIPS". In addition to writing poems inhabited by trains, Ken can't remember when he didn't photograph all the railroad stations, train tracks and speeding railroad cars he encountered.

Ken received his doctorate in Family Studies at Columbia University and is a practicing psychotherapist and certified classical homeopath. His book, "A Wider Lens: How to See Your Life Differently", was released in 2018. His chapbook, "Legacy Poems" is currently available as an e-book. He can be contacted via his website at: drkennethsilvestri.com. CAT WEAVER is the poet's pseudonym for Dr. Carole Weaver, motivational speaker (How Art Heals); author ("Side Effects: The Art of Surviving Cancer" and "Pies to Die For"); fundraiser (over $50 million for various non-profits); and former college professor (Iona College and University of Maryland). With a doctorate in English and years of teaching the American military in Europe, her well-traveled heart always had a chamber for the poetry of trains. But when Ken Silvestri and Natasha Rabin invited her to an exhibit of photographs and poetry on the subject, the portal to "Train Romance" opened. She is grateful to these partners for getting her on track with their generosity, talent and inspiration. NATASHA RABIN wrote her first poem in the third grade. That muse has visited her often, while leaving room for her children's book, "Year of the Cat", and for painting and collage to take precedence frequently since purchasing her first set of watercolors in Kyoto, Japan. Having worked in the film industry for many years and thrived on the collaborative nature of that artistic medium, "Train Romance" has been a gift of deep collaboration with her co-poets, Cat & Ken (dear friend and life partner, respectively). She is a recipient of two Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards, the first for her poem "Back to the Future", which appears in this volume. Natasha is currently developing a book of haiku - "Like a Work of Art" - that she also plans to illustrate.