The poem begins in ‘an ancient garden in the midnight city’, where a nocturnal recollection of the past begins an epic voyage traversing centuries of ideas and continents of profound imagery.

“The Basement Trains”, Payne’s greatest long poem, written when he was 28 years old, conjures up a wealth of poetic legacies: from Dante’s visit to the underworld, to
TS Eliot’s ‘mind of Europe.’ Here, one sees William Blake, Milton, the Catholic Bible, Greek and Roman myth, Russian folklore; while, beyond this, one hears the voice of Roman Payne in its purest poetic form.

This bilingual first-edition contains the superb translation into French by Aurélien Galateau.

This edition is illustrated with
photographic plates by the author