Many a poet has mused on the haphazard nature of inspiration, how it can arise when least expected and evaporate without notice. Some carry notebooks to catch it on the fly; others sit before their laptops, awaiting enlightenment. In Snake Train: Poems 1984 – 2013 Edwin Frank builds a book not just on the fleeting content of vision, but on the mystery of its appearance and how it leaves a residue which he can neither quite assimilate nor deny.