In 1956, American trucking entrepreneur Malcolm McLean introduced the first successful modern shipping container, using a converted tanker, the 'Ideal X', to carry 58 containers from Newark, New Jersey, to Houston, Texas. This invention, a simple steel box, was to revolutionize global trade, as containers could be easily transferred between ships, trains, and trucks, drastically reducing the cost and time of loading and unloading cargo. The standardization of the container made the global transport of goods, including food and beverages, vastly more efficient, fueling the growth of the global economy in the post-war era.

The shipping container is a symbol of modern globalization, an object that has been taken up by poets and writers as a metaphor for the hidden systems that connect our lives. The container, with its standardized form and its invisible cargo, represents the vast, impersonal networks of production and transport that bring food to our tables. Poets of the 21st century, from the United States to Europe, have written about containers, ports, and the global supply chain, making this humble invention a subject for contemporary verse and a key image for understanding the modern world.