The poems in Shadow Train were composed during an eight-month period between March and mid- October 1979. Ashbery, a New York City apartment dweller for his entire adult life, had just purchased a Victorian house in upstate New York. In his study of Ashbery's poetry, On the Outside Looking Out, John Shoptaw speculates that "With its multiple rooms, this house may have provided a blueprint for the many-chambered volume [i.e., Shadow Train]." In a New York magazine article, "Capital Gains," Ashbery likens the poems in Shadow Train to abstract art, saying, "These compositions go about their business as though dealing with the customary square or oblong containing frame, yet they are unexpectedly truncated and finally liberated by the soaring and diminishing implications of the diamond shape."

Music and art play major roles in Ashbery's composing processes. His house boasts paintings and artwork from friends such as...