The Madhouse System expands on Graham Allen's previous concerns with history, the Romantic poetic tradition, and social as well as individual identity. Allen's poetry does not simply describe the world, or offer up universalised sentiments, it radically engages with the lunacies of what it takes to be a dark hour, in the hope that poetry might still make a difference. In this spirit, The Madhouse System offers a Dantean voyage through levels of increasing dislocation until, in its final section, it achieves a tentative unfolding of hope and renewed life. Questioning how the inhabitants of a madhouse escape, this collection rounds on a set of answers which take us out of present day evils back to the possibility of a future and the certainties of love.