Smith|Doorstop, 2011
Early Train was Jonathan’s second full collection, published seventeen years after his first. While many of the poems had been written in the years just prior to publication, it picked up on themes from his first book, The Living Room, particularly family and landscape.
“The quiet power of these tender and true poems pulls you in. Davidson is as interested in the haunting strangeness of nostalgia as he is in the oddly humanising effect of the mundane. And he often finds in the ordinary something joyous and surprising. This is a remarkable collection.” — Jackie Kay
“Early Train offers us page after page of poems that provide the jolt of recognition. In other words, they provoke a sudden self-awareness in the reader that sets us off on our own imaginative journey. […] It’s a collection of maturity by an outstanding poet.” – Matthew Stewart, Rogue Strands
Jonathan Davidson 